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MY BROTHER 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



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MY BROTHER 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



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BY 

CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1921 



OoprmioBT, 1021, bt 
CHARLES SCRIBNBR'S 80M8 



PnblUhed Septanbcr, 1921 



WITH TBNDXR AVFBCTION Z DSDICATS TUUI BOOK 

TO MT 8IBTBB 

ANNA ROOSEVELT COWLES 

WHOBB UNBBLIIBH DBTOTIOK TO HEB BBOTHSB 

THBODOBB BOOBBVKLT 

NBTSB WATBBXD THBOUOH HIS WHOLB UTB, AND FOB WHOM 

HB HAD FBOM CHILDHOOD 
A DBBP AND UNBWXBVINO LOTB AND ADBUBAHON 




PREFACE 

Tbis Prefoce I write to my feDow ooimtrymen as I pve into 
tfadr hands these intiniate reminiscences of my brother, Theo- 
dore RoosevdL 

A year and a half ago I was invited by the City History Qub 
of New York to make an address about my brother on Washing- 
ton's Birthday. Upon being asked what I would call my speech, 
I replied that as George Washington was the ''Father of his 
countiy/' as Abraham Lincoln was the ''Saviour of his country," 
so Theodore Roosevelt was the "Brother of his countiy," and 
that, therefore, the subject of my q>eech would be "The Brother 
of His Country." 

In the same way, I fed that in giving to the public these 
almost confidential personSd recollections, I do so because of 
the attitude of that veiy public toward Theodore Roosevdt 
There is no sacrilege in sharing such memories with the people 
who have loved him, and whom he loved so well. 

This book is not a biography, it is not a political histoiy of 
the times, although I have been most careful in the effort to 
record facts accuratdy, and carefully to search my memoiy 
before relating conversations or experiences; it is, I hope, a 
clear picture, drawn at dose hand by one who, because of her 
relationship to him and her intercourse with him, knew his 
loyalty and tenderness of heart in a rare and satisfying way, 
and had unusual opportunity of comprehending the point of 
view, and therefore perhaps of clarifying the point of view, of 
one of the great Americans of the day. 

As I have reread his letters to me, as I have dwdt upon our 

long and devoted friendship — for we were even more friends than 

brother and sbter— his character stands out to me more strongly 

vii 



viii Preface 

than ever before as that of '^The Great Sharer." He shared 
all that he had — ^his worldly goods, his strong mentality, his 
wide sympathy, his joyous fun, and his tender comprehension — 
with all those with whcHn he came in contact, and especially 
with those closest and dearest to him — the members of his own 
family and his sisters. 

In the spirit of confidence that my frankness will not be mis- 
understood, I place a sister's interpretation of a world-wide 
personality in the hands of my fellow Americans. 

CosiNNE Roosevelt Robinson. 

S^tember, 1921. 



CONTENTS 

I. Toe Nursery and Its Deities i 

n. Green Fields and Foreign Faring 34 

m. The Dresden Literary American Club ... 69 

IV. College Chums and New-Found Leadership . . 94 

V. The Young Reformer 116 

VI. The Elkhorn Ranch and Near-Roughing It in 

Yellowstone Park . 135 

VII. Two Recreant New York Policemen .... 155 

Vm. Cowboy and Clubman 164 

IX. The Rough Rider Storms the Capitol at Albany 181 

X. How the Path Led to the White House ... 194 

XI. Home Life in the White House 306 

Xn. Home Life in the White House {Caniinuei) . . 236 

XIII. Wall Street Hopes Every Lion Will Do Its 

Duty 254 

XrV. The Great Denial 264 

XV. Whisperings of War 376 

XVI. "Do It Now" 303 

XVIL War 323 

XVIII. "The Quiet Quitting" 359 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Theodore Roosevelt with his little granddaughter, Edith 
Roosevelt Derby, 1918 Frontispiece 

r Acmo MOB 

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., aged thirty, 1862 8 

Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, twenty-two years old, about 1856 . 8 

Theodore Roosevelt, about eighteen months old, i860 ... 18 

Theodore Roosevelt, about four years old, 1862 18 

Elliott Roosevelt, aged five and a half years, about 1865 . . 32 

Corinne Roosevelt, about four years old, 1865 32 

Theodore Roosevelt, aged seven, 1865 32 

Corinne Roosevelt, 1869, at seven and a half years • • • . 46 

Theodore Roosevelt at ten years of age 46 

Anna Roosevelt at the age of fifteen when she spoke of herself 

asoneof the "three older ones" 46 

The Dresden Literary American Club— Motto, " W. A. N. A." 

("We Are No Asses") 72 

Theodore Roosevelt, Oyster Bay, September 21, 1875 ... 92 

Theodore Roosevelt, December, 1876, aged eighteen ... 92 

Portrait taken in Chicago, July, 1880, on the way to the hunt- 
ing trip of that season 114 

We had that lovely dinner on the portico at the back of the 

White House looking toward the Washington Monument 230 

A review of New York's drafted men before going into training 

in September, 1917 332 



MY BROTHER 

rrry^r^^^^^ ROOSEVELT 



THE STAR 
EpiPHAMYy 19x9 

Great soul, to all brave souls akin, 
ffig^ bearer of tbe torch of truth. 

Have you not gone to marshal in 
Those eager hosts of youth? 

Flung outward on the battle's tide, 
They met in regions dim and far; 

And you, in whom youth never died, 
Shan lead them, as a star. 

— MABIQN OOUXHOUY SMIXB. 



MY BROTHER THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



THE NURSERY AND ITS DEITIES 

THE first lecoUectioiis of a chfld are dim and hazy, and 
so the nursery at 28 East 20th Street, in New York City, 
does not stand out as dearly to me as I wish it did — but 
|tbe personality of my brother overshadowed the room, as his | 
'personality all throu|^ life dominated his environment 

I suppose I must have been about four, and he about seven, 
when my first memory takes definite form. My older sister, 
Anna, though only four years older than my brother Theodore, 
was always mysteriously classed with the ''grown people," and 
the "nursery'' consisted of my brother Theodore, my brother 
Elliott, a year and a half younger than Theodore, and myself, 
still a year and a half younger than Elliott. 

In those days we were "Teedie," "Ellie," and "Conie," 
and we had the most lovely mother, the most manly, able, and 
delightful father, and the most charming aunt, Anna Bulloch, 
the sister of my Southern mother, with whom children were 
ever blessed. 

Theodore Roosevelt, whose name later became the synon3nai 
of virile health and viffnr , vrs^ ^ frjffll ^i p^^^?"^ ^Mffg^?I j" ^h^^fi 
ear ly da y s of the nursery in 20th Street. I can see him now 
Struggling with the effort to breathe — ^for his enemy was that 
terrible trouble, asthma — but always ready to give the turbulent 
''little ones" the drink of water, book, or plaything which they 
vociferously demanded, or equally ready to weave for us long 
stories of animal life — stories closely resembling the jungle stories 
of Kipling — ^for MowgU had his precursor in the brain of the 
little boy of seven or eight, whose knowledge of natural history 



2 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

even at that early age was strangdy accurate, and whose imag- 
ination gave to the creatures of forest and field impersonations 
as vivid as those which Rudyard K^ling has made immortal 
for all time. 

We used to sit, Elliott and I, on two littk chairs, near the 
higher chair which was his, and drink in these tales of endless 
variety, and which always were '' to be continued in our next" — 
a serial stoiy which never flagged in interest for us, though some- 
times it continued from week to week, or even from month to 
month. 

It was in the nursery that he wrote, at the age of seven, the 
famous essay on '^The Foregoing Ant." He had read in Wood's 
''Natural History" many descriptions of various species of ant, 
and in one instance on turning the page the author continued: 
"The foregoing ant has such and sudi charactaistics." The 
young naturalist, thinking that this particular ant was unique, 
and being ^)ecially interested in its forthgoing character, decided 
to write a thesis on ''The Foregoing Ant," to the reading of which 
essay he called in conclave "the grown people." One can well 
imftgtTM* the tender amusement over the little author, an amuse- 
ment, however, which those wise "grown people" of 28 East 
2oth Street never kt dq;enerate into ridicule. 

No memories of my brother could be accurate without an 
analysis of the personalities who formed so big a part of our 
environment in childhood, and I fed that my father, the first 
Theodore Roosevdt, has never been adequately described. 

He was the son of Cornelius Van Shaack and Margaret 
Bamhill Roosevdt, whose old home on the comer of Z4th Street 
and Broadway was long a landmark in New YoriL City. Corne- 
lius Van Shaack Roosevdt was a typical merchant of his day, 
fine and true and loyal, but ultraconservative in many ways; 
and his lovdy wife, to whom he addressed, later, such exquisite 
poems that I have always felt that they should have been given 
more than private circulation, was a Pennsylvanian of Quak er 
blood. 



The Nursery and Its Deities 3 

The first Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest of five sons, 
and I remember my mother used to tell me how friends of her 
mother-in-law once told her that Mrs. Cornelius Van Shaack 
Roosevelt was always spoken of as V^ that lovely Mrs. Roose- 
velt" with those ''five horrid boys.'') 

As far as I can see, the unpleasant adjective '^horrid" was 
only adaptable to the five little boys from the usual standpoint 
of boyish mischief, untidinesSi and general youthful irrepressible- 



The youngest, my father, Theodore Roosevelt, ohea told 
us himself how he deplored the fate of being the ''fifth wheel 
to the coach," and of how many a mortification he had to en- 
dure by wearing dothes cut down from the different shq)es of 
his older brothers, and much depleted shoes about which, once, 
on overhearing his mother say, "These were Robert's, but will 
be a good dumge for Theodore," he protested vigorously, cry- 
ing out that he was ''t^rtrf^ ftf fh^^gfiff '* 

As the first Theodore grew older he developed into one of 
the most enchanting characters with whom I, personally, have 
ever oome in contact; sunny, gay, dominant, unselfish, forceful, 
and versatile, he yet had the extraordinary power of being a 
focussed individual, although an ''all-round" man. Notlung 
is as difficult as to achieve results in this world if one is filled 
full of great tolerance and the milk of human kindness. The 
person who achieves must generally be a one-ideaed individual, 
concentrated entirely on that one idea, and ruthless in his aspect 
toward other men and other ideas. 

My father, in his brief life of forty-six years, achieved almost 
everything he undertook, and he undertook many things, but, 
althou^ able to ffve the concentration which is necessary to 
achievement, he had the power of interesting himself in many 
things outside of his own special interests, and by the most deli- 
cate and comprehending sympathy made himself a factor in 
the lives of any number of other human beings. 

My broth^s great tove for his humankind was a direct in- 



4 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

heritanoe f nmi the man who was one of the founders in his dty 
of nearly every patriotic, humanitarian, and educational en- 
deavor. I think, perhs^, the combination of the stem old 
Dutch blood with the Irish blood, of ^^lich my brother always 
boasted, made my father what he wasr^u]iS]|^YingJn dutyi, im- 
peccable in honesty and upriyfrtness, and yet responsive to the 
joy of life to such an extent that he would dance all night, and 
drive his ^^four-in-hand" coach so fast that the old tradition 
was '^that his grooms frequently fell out at the comers" I 

I remember that he always gave up one day of every week 
(and he was a very busy merchant and then banker) to the per- 
sonal visiting of the poor in their homes. He was not satisfied 
with doing active work on many organizations, although he 
did the most extra o rdinary amount of active organization work, 
.being one of the founders of the Children's Aid Society, of the 
State Aid Society, of the Sanitary Conmiission and Allotment 
Commission in the time of the Qvil War, and of the Orthopaedic 
Hoq>ital, not to mention the Museum of Natural History and 
the Museum of Art — but he felt that even more than this or- 
ganized effort must be the effort to get close to the hearts and 
homes of those who were less fortunately situated than he. 

My older sister suffered from spinal trouble, and my father 
was determined to leave no stone unturned to make her body 
fit for life's joys and life's labors, and it was because of his ef- 
forts to give his little girl health-'-sucoessful efforts — ^that in 
co-operation with his friends Howard Potter and James M. 
Brown and several others he started the great work of the New 
York Orthopaedic Hospital, having become imbued with belief 
in the methods of a young doctor, Charles Fayette Taylor. No- 
body at that time believed in treating such diseases in quite 
the way in which modem orthopaedy treats them now, but my 
father, like his son, had the vision of things to be, and was a 
leader in his way, as was my brother in his. 

He could not at first influence sufficient people to start the 
building of a hospital, and he decided that if the New York 



The Nursery and Its Deities 5 

public could only see what the new instruments would do for the 
stricken children, that it could be annised to assist the enter- 
prise. 

And so, one beautiful q>ring afternoon, my mother gave 
what was supposed to be a purely social reception at our second 
home, at 6 West 57th Street, and my father saw to it that the 
little sufferers in whom he was interested were brought from 
their poverty-stricken homes to ours and laid upon our dining- 
room table, with the steel appliances which could help them 
badk to normal limbs on thdr backs and legs, thus ready to 
visualize to New York citizens how these stricken little people 
mig^t be cured. He placed me by the table where the children 
lay, and explained to me how I could show the appliances, and 
what they were supposed to achieve; and I can still hear the 
voice of the first Mrs. John Jacob Astor, as she leaned over one 
fraj^e-lookingchOdand, turning to my father, said: ''Theodore, 
you are right; these children must be restored and made into 
active citizens again, and I for one will he^ you in your 
work-" 

That veiy day enough money was donated to start the first 
Orthc^Medic Hospital, in East 59th Street. Many business 
friends of my father used to tell me that they feared his sudden 
visits when, with a certain expression in his eyes, he would ap« 
proach them, for then before he could say anything at all they 
would feel obliged to take out their pocketbooks and ask: ''How 
much this time, Theodore?" 

One of his most devoted interests was the newsboys' lodging- 
house in West i8th Street, and later in 35th Street, under the 
auspices of the Children's Aid Society. Every Sunday evening 
of his life he went to that lodging-house, after our early hos- 
pitable Sunday supper, to which many a forlorn relation or 
stranded stranger in New Yoric was always invited, and there 
he would talk to the boys, giving them just such ideas of pa- 
triotism, pff^l ^riy^ncMp onH mfltily m^rolify oq ipaiy^ fliA 

thffnps nf hfa son in later yftarft. 



6 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

The foundational scheme of the Children's Aid Society was, 
and is, to place little dty waifs in country homes, and thus give 
them the chance of health and individual care, and a very dra- 
matic incident occurred many years after my father's death, 
when my brother, as governor of New York State and candidate 
for the vice-presidency in 1900, had gone to the Far West to make 
the great campaign for the second election of William McKinley . 
The governors of many Western States decided to meet in the 
dty of Portland, Ore., to pve a dinner and do honor to the 
governor of the Empire State, and as Governor Roosevelt en- 
tered the room they each in turn presented themselves to him. 
The last one to come forward was Governor Brady, of Alaska, 
and as he shook hands with Governor Roosevdt he said: '^Gov- 
ernor Roosevelt, the other governors have greeted you with 
interest, sunply as a fellow governor and a great American, but 
I greet you with infinitdy more interest, as the son of your 
father, the first Theodore Roosevdt" 

My brother smiled and shook him warmly by the hand, and 
asked in what q)edal way he had been interested in our father, 
and he replied: ''Your father picked me up from the streets in 
New York, a waif and an orphan, and sent me to a Western 
family, paying for my transportation and early care. Years 
passed and I was able to rq>ay the money which had given me 
my start in life, but I can never rq>ay what he did for me, for 
it was through that early care and by giving me such a foster 
mother and father that I gradually rose in the world, until to- 
day I can greet his son as a f eUow governor of a part of our great 
country." 

I was so thrilled when my brother told me this story on hb 
return from that campaign, that the very next Sunday evening 
I bagged him to go with me to the old 35th Street lodging-house 
to tell the newsboys that were assembled there the story of an- 
other little newsboy, now the governor of Alaska, to show that 
^ere is no Hm* in thU p^At^ ir^. "?MBitr Y ^ ffrgjo what 



The Nursery and Its Deities 7 

My father was the most intimate friend of each of his diil- 
dien, and in some unique way seemed to have the power of re- 
sponding to the need of each, and we all craved him as our most 
desired companion. One of his deUghtful rules was that on 
the birthday of each child he should give himself in some special 
way to that child, and many were the perfect excursions which 
he and I took together on my birthday. 

The day being toward the end of September was always 
q[)ent in the country, and lover as he was of fine horses, I was 
always given the ^)edal treat of an all day's adventure behind 
a pair of q>lendid trotters. We would take the books of poetry 
which we both loved and we would disappear for the whole 
day, driving many miles through leafy lanes until we found the 
ideol spot, where we unharnessed the horses and gave them their 
dinner, and having taken our own delidous picnic lunch, would 
read aloud to each other by the hour, until the early September 
twilight warned us that we must be on our way homeward. 

In those earlier days in New York the amusements were 
perhaps simpler, but the hospitality was none the less generous, 
and our parents were indeed '^pven to hospitality." 

My lovely Southern mother, of whom I will speak more 
later, had inherited from her forebears a gift for hospitality, 
and we young children, according to Southern customs, were 
allowed to mingle more with our elders than was the case with 
many New York children. I am a great believer in such min- 
gling, and some of the happiest friendships of our later lives were 
formed with the chosen companions of our parents, but many 
things were done for us individually as well. When we were 
between thirteen and sixteen I remember the delightful little 
Friday-evening dances which my mother and father organized 
for us in 57th Street, and in which they took actual part them- 
selves. 

As I said before, my father could dance all nig^t with the 
same delightful vim that he could turn to his business or his 
philanthropy in the daytime, and he enjoyed our pleasures as he 



8 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

did his own. It always seems to me sad that the relationship 
between father and son, or father and daughter, should not have 
the quality of charm, a quality which it so often lacks, and which 
I believe is largely lacking because of the failure of the older 
generation to enter into the attitude of the younger generation. 

I was delicate at one period and could not dance as I had 
always done, and I remember when I was going to a little en- 
tertainment, just as I was leaving, the house I received an ex- 
quisite bunch of violets with a card from my father, asking me 
to wear the flowers, and think of his wish that I should not over- 
tire myself, but also of his sympathy that I could not do quite 
what I had always done. 

Comparatively few little girls of fourteen have had so lover- 
like an attention from a father, and just such thought and ten- 
der, loving comprehension made our relationship to our father 
one of perfect comradeshq>, and yet of re^>ectful adoration, 
^e tau^t us all, when very young, to ride and to swim and to 
dimb trees. I remember the careful way in which he would 
show us dead limbs and warn us about watching out for them, 
and then, having taught us and having warned us, he gave us 
full liberty to try our wings and fall by the wayside should they 
prove inadequate for our adventures. 

After graduating from our first Shetland pony, he provided 
us each with a riding-horse, and always rode with us himself, 
and a merry cavalcade went forth from our country home, either 
early in the morning before he started for the train or in the 
soft summer evenings on his return. When at one time we were 
living on the Hudson River, we had hoped one autiunn after- 
noon that he would come home early from the city, and great 
was our disappointment when a tremendous storm came up and 
we realized that he would take a later train, and that our be- 
loved ride must be foregone. We were eagerly waiting in the 
hall for his return and watching the rain falling in torrents and 
the wind blowing it in gusts, when the dq>ot wagon drove up 
to the door and my father leaped out, followed by the slight 



top 
pi&i 



bi 

Do 

in 

Un 

to 



Bi 



OQ 



It 

s 



The Nursery and Its Deities 9 

figure of a somewhat younger man. As the young man tried 
to put up his umbrella it blew inside out and, like a dilapidated 
pinwheel loosened from his hand, ran round and round in a cir- 
cle. The unknown guest merrily chased the umbrella pinwheel, 
and my mother, ^o had joined us children at the window, 
laughingly wondered who my father's new friend was. The 
front door opened and the two dripping men came in, and we 
rushed to meet them. 

I can see the laughing face of the young man become sud- 
denly shy and a little self-consdous as my father said to my 
mother: '^Mittie, I want to present to you a young man who 
in the future, I believe, will make his name well known in the 
United States. This is Mr. John Hay, and I wish the children 
to shake hands with him." 

Many and many a time, long, k>ng years after, when John 
Hay was secretary of state in the cabinet of the second Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, he used to refer to that stormy autumn after- 
noon when a delicate boy of eleven, at the instigation of 
his father, shook hands with him and looked gravely up into 
his face, wondering perhaps how John Hay was going to make 
his name known throughout the United States. How little did 
Mr. Hay think then that one day he would be the secretary of 
state when that same little delicate boy was President of the 
United States. 

My father's intimacy with John Hay had come about through 
the fact of contact in the Civil War, when they both worked so 
hard in Washington together. 

My father stands out as the most dominant figure in our 
early childhood. Not that my mother was not equally indi- 
vidual, but her delicate health prevented her from entering into 
our q)orts and unruly doings as our father did; but I have al- 
ways thought that she, in an almost equal degree with my father, 
influenced my brother's nature, both by her French Huguenot 
and Scotch blood and her Southern ancestry. 

The story of her meeting with my father has a romantic flavor 



lo My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

to it. My grandmother, Mrs. Stephens Bulloch, lived in an 
old plantation above Atlanta, on the sand-hills of Georgia. 
There, in the old white-columned house overlooking a beautiful 
valley, my grandmother led a patriarchal life, the head of a large 
family, for she had been as a young girl the second wife of Sena- 
tor John Elliott, and she not only brought up the^children of that 
marriage but the children and stq>child of her second marriage 
as well. My own mother was the second daughter] of Mr. and 
Mrs. Stephens Bulloch, but she never knew the difference be- 
tween her Elliott half brother and sisters, her Bulloch half- 
brother and her own brother and sister. 

In the roomy old home with its simple white colunms there 
was led an ideal life, and the devotion of her children to my beau- 
tiful grandmother, as the many letters in my possession prove, 
was one of the inspiring factors in their lives, and became the 
same to our own childhood, for many were the loving stories 
told us by my mother and aunt of the wonderful character of 
thar mother, who ran her Southern plantation (Mr. Bulloch 
died comparatively young) with all the practical ability and 
kindly supervision over her slaves characteristic of the Southern 
men and women of her time. 

The aforesaid slaves were treated as friends of the family, 
and they became to us, her little Northern grandchildren, figures 
of great interest. We were never tired of hearing the stories 
of "Daddy Luke" and "Mom Charlotte." 

The first of these two, a magnificent Nubian, with thick 
black lips and very curly hair, was the coachman and trusted 
comrade of my grandmother's children, while his wife, "Mom 
Charlotte," was a very fastidious mulatto, slender and hand- 
some, who, for some illogical reason, considered her mixed blood 
superior to his pure dark strain. She loved him, but with a 
certain amount of disdain, and though on week-days she treated 
him more or less as an equal, on Sundays, when dressed in her 
very best bandanna and her most elegant prayer-book in hand, 
she utterly refused to have him walk beside her on the path to 



The Nursery and Its Deities ii 

churchy and obliged him ignominiously to biing up the rear with 
shamefaced inferiority. Mom Charlotte on Sundays, when in 
her superior mood, would look at her spouse with contempt, 
and say, ^'B' Luke, he nothin' but a black nigger; he mout' stan' 
out to de spring," referring to Daddy Luke's thick Nubian Vps^ 
and pointing at the well about one hundred yards distant from 
the porch. 

There was also a certain ''little black Sarah," who was the 
foster-sister of my uncle, Irvine Bulloch, my mother's younger 
brother. In the old Southern days on such plantations there 
was almost always a colored ^'pickaninny" to match each white 
child, and they were actually considered as foster brother or 
sister. Little Irvine was afraid of the darkness inside the house, 
and little Sarah was afraid of the darkness outside the house, 
and so the little white boy and the little black girl were insq>a- 
rable companions, each guarding the other from the imaginary 
dangers of house or grounds, and each sympathetically round- 
ing out the care-free life of the other. 

My mother's brilliant half-brother, Stewart Elliott, whose 
love of art and literature and music took him far afield, spent 
much of his time abroad, and when he came back to Roswell 
(the name of the plantation) he was always much amused at 
the quaint slave customs. One perfect moonlight night he took 
his guitar into the grove near the house to sing to the group of 
girls on the porch, but shortly afterward returned much dis- 
gusted and described the conversation which he had overheard 
between little white Irvine and little black Sarah on the back 
porch. It ran as follows, both children gazing up into the sky: 
Sarah: ''Sonny, do you see de Moon?" "Yes, Sarah, it do 
crawl like a worrum." The moon at the moment was perform- 
ing the feat which Shelley poetically described as gliding, "glim- 
mering o'er its fleecelike floor." The young musician could 
not stand the proximity of such masters of simile as were Irvine 
and Sarah, and demanded that they should be forbidden the 
back porch on moonlight nights from that time forth I 



12 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

There was also another young slave who went by the name 
of "Black Bess/' and was the devoted companion of her two 
young mistresses, Martha, my mother, and her sister, Anna 
Bulloch. She slept on a mat at the foot of their beds and ren- 
dered the devoted services that only the slave of the old plan- 
tation days ever gave to his or her mistress. My mother used 
to accompany her mother on her visits to all the outl3ang little 
huts in which the various negroes Kved, and she often told us 
the story of a visit one day to "Mom Lucy's" little home, where 
a baby had just been bom. 

Mom Lucy had had several children, none of whom had 
lived but a few hours, and when my grandmother and her little 
daughter visited the new baby, now about a week old, the mother, 
stiU lying on her couch, looked up at my grandmother and said: 
"Ole Miss, I jus' done name her." "And what have you named 
her, Lucy?" asked my grandmother; "she is a jGbtie baby and 
I am so glad you are going to have the comfort of her all your 
life." "Oh!" said the colored woman sadly, "I don't 'spec' 
her to live, dey ain't none of 'em done live, and so I jus' call her 
Cumsy." "Cumsy?" said my grandmother, "and what may 
that mean, Lucy?" "Why, ole Miss, don't you understan'? 
Dey all done go to deir heavenly home, and so I jus' call dis one 
^Come-see-de-world-and-go,' and my ole man and me we is goin' 
to call her *Cxunsy' for short." 

My grandmother tried to aigue Lucy out of this mortuary 
cognomen, but with no effect, and years afterward when my 
mother revisited Roswell as Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, one of 
the first negroes to greet her was " Come-see-the-world-and-go I" 

All these stories of the old plantation were fascinating to 
the children of the nursery in 20th Street, and we loved to hear 
how the brothers and sisters in that old house played and worked, 
for they all did their share in the work of the household. There 
the beautiful half-sister of my mother, Susan Elliott, brought 
her Northern lover, Hilbome West, of Philadelphia, whose sister, 
Mary West, had shortly before married Weir Roosevelt, of New 



The Nursery and Its Deities 13 

Yoik, the older brother of my father^ Theodore Roosevelt. This 
same Hilbome West^ a young physician of brilliant promise, 
adored the informal, fascinating plantation Ufe, and loved the 
companionship of the two dainty, pretty girls of fourteen and 
sixteen, Martha and Anna Bulloch, his fiancee's young half- 
sisters. 

Many were the private theatricals and riding-parties, and 
during that first gay visit Doctor West constantly spoke of his 
young connection by marriage, Theodore Roosevelt, who he 
felt would love Roswell as he did. 

A year afterward, inspired by the stories of Doctor West, 
my father, a young man of nineteen, asked if he might pay a 
visit at the old plantation, and there began the love-affair with 
a black-haired girl of fifteen which later was to develop into 
so deep a devotion that when the young Roosevelt, two years 
later, returned from a trip abroad and found this same young 
girl visiting her sister in Philadelphia, he succumbed at once 
to the fascination from which he had never fully recovered, and 
later travelled once more to the old pillared house on the sand- 
hills of Georgia, to carry Martha Bulloch away from her South- 
em home forever. 

I cannot help quoting from letters from Martha Bulloch 
written in July, 1853, shortly after her engagement, and again 
from Martha Roosevelt a little more than a year later, when 
she revisits her old home. She had been hard to win, but when 
her lover leaves Roswell at the end of his first visit, inunediately 
following their engagement, she yields herself fully and writes: 

Thee, Deawsst Thee: ^^^^' ^^^ ^^' ^^53- 

I promised to tell you if I cried when you left me. I had 
determined not to do so if possible, but when the dreadful feel- 
ing came over me that you were, indeed, gone, I could not help 
my tears from springiog and had to rush away and be alone with 
myself. Everything now seems associated with you. Even 



14 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

when I run up the stairs going to my own room, I fed as if you 
were near^ and turn involuntarily to kiss my hand to you. I 
fed, dear Thee, — ^as though you were part of my existence, and 
that I only live in your being, for now I am confident of my own 
deep love. When I went in to lunch today I fdt very sad, for 
there was no one now to whom to make the request to move 
^' just a quarter of an inch farther away " — ^but how foolish I 
am, — ^you will be tired of this ''rhapsody. . . ." 

Tom King has just been here to persuade us to join the Brush 
Mountain picnic tomorrow. We had refused but we are recon- 
sidering. 

July 27th, 

We have just returned after having had a most delightful 
time. It was almost impossible for our horses to keep a foot- 
hold, the Mountain was so steep, but we were fully repaid by 
the beautiful extended view from the top, and when we de- 
scended, at the bottom, the gentlemen had had planks spread 
and carriage cushions arranged for us to rest, and about four 
o'dock we had our dinner. Such appetites I Sandwiches, 
chicken wings, bread and dieese disappeared miraculously. 

Tom had a fire built and we had nice hot tea and about six 
o'dock we commenced our return. I had promised to ride back 
with Henry Stiles, so I did so, and you cannot imagine what a 
picturesque effect our riding party had, — ^not having any Habit, 
I fixed a bright red shawl as a skirt and a long red scarf on my 
head, turban fashion with long ends streaming. Lizzie Smith 
and Anna dressed in the same way, and we were all perfectly 
wild with spirits and created quite an exdtement in Roswell by 
our gay cavalcade — But all the same I was joked all day by 
everybody, who said that they could see that my eyes were 
swollen and that I had been crying. 

All this in a very delicate Italian hand, and leaving her lover, 
I imagine, a little jealous of ''Henry Stiles," in spite of the 
"rhapsody" at the beginning of the letter I 



The Nursery and Its Deities 15 

My father's answer to that very letter is so full of deep joy 
at the ^'rhapsody/' in which his beautiful and occasionally ca- 
pricious Southern sweetheart indulged, that I do not think he 
even remembered '^Henry Stiles/' for he repHes to her as fol- 
lows: 

New York, August 3rd. 

How can I express to you the pleasure which I received 
in reading your letter ! I felt as you recalled so vividly to my 
mind the last morning of our parting, the blood rush to my tem- 
ples; and I had, as I was in the office, to lay the letter down, 
for a few minutes to regain command of myself. I had been 
hiding against hope to receive a letter from you, but such a letter 1 
O, Mitde, how deeply, how devotedly I love you I Do continue 
to return my love as ardently as you do now, or if possible love 
me more. I know my love for you merits such return, and do, 
dear little Mittie, continue to write, (when you f^ moved to I) 
just such '^ rhapsodies." 



'-^ 



c^y\,vy/)4 



On December 3, 1853, very shortly before her wedding, 
Martha Bulloch writes another letter, and in spite of her orig- 
inal ''rhapsody," and her true devotion to her lover, one can 
see that she has many girlish qualms, for she writes him: ''I 
do dread the time before our wedding, darling — and I wish that 
it was all up and that I had died game I" 

A year and a half later, May 2, 1855, Martha Roosevelt is 
again at the home of her childhood, this time with her little baby, 
my older sister, Anna, and her husband has to leave her, and 
she writes again: 

^'I long to hear you say once again that you love me. I 
know you do but stiU I would like to have a fr^ avowaL You 
have proved that you love me dear, in a thousand ways and 
still I long to hear it again and again. It will be a joyful day 
when we meet again. I fed as though I would never wish to 
leave your side again. You know how much I enjoy being with 
mother and Anna, but all the same I am only waiting until 



1 6 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

^Thee' comes, for you can hardly iinagine what a watUing feel- 
ing I have when you are gone. 

''Mother is out in the entiy talking to one of the 'Crackers/ 
While I was dressing mother brought in a sweet rose and I have 
it in my breast pin. I have picked one of the leaves off just 
this moment and send it to you — for Thee — the roses are out 
in beautiful profusion and I wish you could see them. • • •" 

A year and a half in the cold North had not dimmed the 
ardor of affection between the young couple. 

We children of the nursery in 28 East 20th Street loved 
nothing better than to make my mother and aunt tell us the 
story of the gay wedding at the old home near Atlanta. I re- 
member still the thrill of excitement with which I used to listen 
to the details of that wonderful week before the wedding when 
all the bridesmaids and ushers gathered at the homestead, and 
every imaginable festivity took place. 

One of my mother's half-brothers had just returned from 
Europe, and fell in love at first sight with one of her beautiful 
bridesmaids, already, alas I engi^;ed to another and much older 
man, not .a member of the wedding-party. My child's heart 
suffered unwarranted pangs at the story of the intense attrac- 
tion of these two young people for each other, and I al¥Fays felt 
that I could see the lovely bridesmaid riding back with the man 
to whom she had unwittingly given her heart, under the South- 
em trees dripping with hanging moss. The romantic stoiy 
ended tragically in an imwiUing marriage, a duel, and much 
that was imfortunate. 

But my mother and my father had no such complications 
I in their own lives, and the Southern girl who went away with 
I her Northern lover never regretted that step, although much 
^ that was difficult and troublous came into their early married 
life because of the years of war from 1861 to 1865, when Martha 
Bulloch's brothers fought for the South and Theodore Roose- 
velt did splendid and xmselfish work in upholding the principles 
for which the North was giving its blood and brawn. 



The Nurserv and Its Deities 17 

C^ The £ghting blood of James Dunwoody and Irvine Bulloch 
was the same blood infused through their sister into the veina 
of their young kinsman, the second Theodore Roosevelt, and 
showed in him the same glowing attributes. The gallant atti- 
tude of their mother, Mrs. Stgihens Bulloch, also had its share 
in the making of her famous grandsonT 

Her son Irvine was only a lad of sixteen, while her stepson, 
James, was much older and was already a famous naval blockade- 
runner when she parted from them. Turning to her daughter 
Anna she prayed that she might never live to know if Irvine 
were killed or Richmond taken by the Northern army. I can- 
not but rejoice that her life passed a¥Fay before such news could 
come to her. It must have been bitter, indeed, for her under 
these circumstances to face the necessity of accepting the bread 
of her Northern son-in-law, and it speaks volumes for the 
characters of both that during the whole war there was never 
a. moment of estrangement between them or between my 
father and his lovely sister-in-law, Anna Bulloch, who be- 
came, because of the fact that she lived with us during those 
early years of our lives, one of the most potent influences of our 
childhood. 

I, myself, remember nothing of the strain of those troubled 
days; but my aunt has often told me of the bedtime hour in 
the nursery when a certain fair-haired, delicate little boy, hardly 
four years old, would kneel at her side to say his evening prayer, 
an d feeling th at she would not dare interrupt _his_petition to 
the Alm^ty, woulcl call down in baby tones and ^th bent 
head* the wmth of the Almighty upon the rebel troops. She 
saidttacTshe could never Torget the fury in the childish voice \ 
/ when he would plead with Divine Providence to ''grind the J 
V Southern troops to powder." 

This same lovely aunt taught us our letters at her knee, in 
that same nursery, having begged, in return for my father's hos- 
pitality, that she should be accepted as our first instructress, 
and not only did she teach us the three R's, but many and many 






1 8 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

a delightful hour was passed in listezixiig to her wonderful ren- 
derings of the ''Br'er Rabbit" stories. 

Both my aunt and my mother had but little opportunity 
for consecutive education, but they were what it seems to me 
Southern women ever are — natural women of the world, and 
yet they combined with a perfect readiness to meet all situa- 
tions an exquisite simplicity and sensitive sympathy, rardyV 
(found in the women of the North. This sensitiveness was not) 
only evidenced in their human relationships but in all pertain- 
ing to art and literature. I have often said that they were 
natural connoisseurs. 

I remember that my father would never buy any wine until 
my mother had tasted it, and experts of various kinds came to 
her in the same way for expressions of her opinion. She was very 
beautiful, with black, fine haii^-not the dusky brunette's coarse 
black hair, but fine of texture and with a glow that sometimes 
seemed to have a slightly russet shade, what her French hair- 
dresser called ''noir dor£," and her skin was the purest and most 
delicate white, more moonlight-white than cream-white, and 
in the cheeks there was a coral, rather than a rose, tint. She 
considered to be one of the most beautiful women of the 
[New York of her day, a rq>utation only shared by Mrs. Gardiner 
[owland, and to us, her children, and to her devoted husband 
she seemed like an exquisite ''objet d'art,'' to be carefully and 
lovingly cherished. Her wit, as well as that of my aunt, was 
known by all her friends and yet it was never used unkindly, 
for she had the most loving heart iniaginahle, and in spite of 
this rare beauty and her wit and charm, she never seemed to 
know that she was unusual in any degree, and cared but little 
for anything but her own home and her own children. Owing 
to delicate health she was not able to enter into the active life 
of her husband and children, and therefore our earliest memo- 
ry ries, where our activities were concerned, turn to my father and 
\ my aunt, but always my mother's gradous loveliness and deep 
\ devotion wrapped us roimd as with a mantle. 



The Nursery and Its Deities 19 

And so these were the three Deities of the Nursery in which 
Theodore Roosevelt spent his first years, and even at that early 
time they realized that in that simple room in the house which 
the patriotic women of America are about to restore as a mecca 
for the American people th€re dwelt a unique little personality 
whose mentality grasped things beyond the ken of other boys 
of his age, and whose gallant spirit surmounted the physical 
difficultly engendered by his puny and fragile body. 

f The nursery at 28 East 20th Street in the early years of the\ 
icivil War mi^ed its chief ddty, my father. From the letters/ 
exchanged by my mother and father, preserved by each of them, 
I have formed a dear realization of what it meant to that nurs- 
ery to lose for almost two years the gay and vigorous x>ersonal- 
ity who always dominated Au environment as did later his son* 

Mr. William E. Dodge, in a very beautiful letter written \;^ \ 
for tfae memorial meeting of the Union League Club in February, ^ « 
1878, just after my father's death, gave the following interesting ^' ^ * 1 ^ "^ 
account of my father's special work in the Civil War, This'^ I* ^ ^' 
letter was read after an doquent speech delivered by Mr. Joseph ^^ "^ '"^ ' 
H. Choate. The part of the letter to which I especially refer 
ran as follows: 

''When the shadows of the coming war began to grow into 
a reality he (Theodore Roosevdt) threw himself with all his 
heart and soul into woik for the country. 

''From peculiar circumstances he was unable to volunteer 
for military service, as was his wish, but he began at once to 
devdop practical plans of usefulness to help those who had gone 
to the front. 

"He became an active worker on the Advisory Board of the 
Woman's Central Association of Relief, that wonderful and 
far-reaching organization of patriotic women out of which grew 
the Sanitaiy Commission. 

"He worked with the 'Loyal Publication Sodety,' which, 
as many of our members know, was a most active and useful 



20 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

educating power in the days when there wi^ great ignorance as 
to the large issues of the conflict. 

''He joined enthusiastically in the organization of the Union 
League Club, was for years a most valued member of its execu- 
tive committees and aided in the raising and equipment of the 
first colored troops. 

''His great practical good sense led him to see needs which 
escaped most other minds. He felt that the withdrawal from 
the homes of so many enlisted men would leave great want in 
many sections of the countiy. He saw the soldiers were more 
than amply clothed and fed, and their laige pay wasted mostly 
among the sutlers, and for puiposes which injured their health 
and efficiency. So with two others he drafted a bill for the ap- 
pointment of Allotment Commissioners, who without pay should 
act for the War Department and arrange to send home to needy 
families, without risk or cost, the money not needed in the camps. 
For three months they woiked in Washington to secure the pas- 
sage of this act — delayed by the utter inability of Congressmen 
to understand why anyone should urge a bill from which no one 
could selfishly secure an advantage. 

"When this was passed he was appointed by President Lin- 
coln one of the three Commissioners from this State. For long, 
weary months, in the depth of a hard winter, he went from 
camp to camp, urging the men to take advantage of this plan. 

"On the saddle often six to eight hours a day, standing in 
the cold and mud as long, addressing the men and entexing their 
names. 

"This resulted in sending many millions of dollars to homes 
where it was greatly needed, kept the memory of wives and chil- 
dren fresh in the minds of the soldiers, and greatly improved 
their morale. Other States followed, and the economical results 
were very great. 

"Towards the dose of the war, finding the ciq>pled soldiers 
and the families of those who had fallen were suffering for back 
pay due and for pensions, and that a race of greedy and wicked 



The Nursery and Its Deities 21 

men were taking advantage of their needs to plunder them, he 
joined in organizing the Protective War-Claim Association, 
which without charge collected these dues. This saved to the 
soldiers' families more than $1,000,000 of fees. 

''He also devised and worked heartily in the Soldiers' Em- 
ployment Bureau, which found fitting work for the crippled men 
who by loss of limb were unfitted for their previous occupations. 
This did wonders toward absorbing into the population of the 
country those who otherwise would have been dependent, and 
preserved the self-respect of the men. I believe it did more 
and vastiy better work than all the 'Soldiers' homes' combined. 
For the work in the Allotment Commission he received the spe- 
cial and formal thanks of the State in a joint resolution of the 
Legislature." 

Nothii^ was more characteristic of my father's attitude 
toward life than his letters during this period to my mother. 
He realized fully that in leaving his young family he was putting 
upon his youthful and delicate wife — ^whose mental suffering 
during the war must have been great, owing to the fact of her 
being a Southerner — ^her full share of what was difficult in the 
situation. He writes with the utmost frankness of his wish 
that she might look on the great question of which the war was 
a symptom from the same standpoint as his, but the beautiful 
love and trust which existed between them was such that in 
all these letters which passed so constantiy during my father's 
labors as Allotment Commissioner, there was never the slightest 
evidence of hurt feelings or friction of any kind. 

In the early fall of 1861 he was struggling to have passed 
by Congress the bill to appoint Allotment Commissioners, and 
spent weary days in Washington to achieve that purpose. When 
the bill was passed and he and Mr. William E. Dodge and Mr. 
Theodore Bronson were appointed as the three commissioners, 
he threw himself with all the ardor and unselfishness of his mag- 
nificent nature into the hard work of visiting the camps in mid- 
winter, and persuading the reluctant soldiers to believe that it 



22 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

was their duty to allot a certain portion of their pay to their 
destitute families. 

He writes on January i, 1862: 

I have stood on the damp ground talking to the troop and 
taking thdb: names for six hours at a time. One of the regiments 
that I visited last, which is wretchedly officered and composed 
of the scum of our dty, seemed for the first time even to recall 
their families. We had an order from the General of Division, 
and the Colonel sent his adjutant to carry out our desires. He 
came, dirty and so drunk that he could not speak straight, and 
of course got the orders wrong. All the officers seem to be f i» 
with the sutler while the private said he was an unmitigated 
thief. The delays were so great that I stood out with one of 
these companies after seven o'clock at nig^t, with one soldier 
holding a candle while I took down the names of those who de- 
sired to send money home. The men looked as hard as I have 
often seen such men look in our Mission neighborhood, but after 
a little talking and explaining my object and reminding them of 
those they had left behind them, one after another put down 
his name, and from this company alone, they allotted, while 
I was there, $600.00. This would be increased afterwards by 
the officers, if they were decent ones, and other men absent on 
guard and through other reasons. I could not help thinking 
what a subject for a painting it would make as I stood out there 
in the dark night, surrounded by the men with one candle just 
showing glimpses of their faces, — tents all aroimd us in the woods. 
One man, after putting down five dollars a month, said suddenly: 
^'My old woman has always been good to me, and if you please, 
change it to ten.'' In a moment, half a dozen others followed 
his example and doubled their allotments. 

I enclose a letter for Teedie [Theodore]. Do take care of 
yourself and the dear littie children while I am away, and re- 
member to enjoy yourself just as much as you can. [This 
sentence is so like my father. Duty was always paramount. 



The Nureery and Its Deities 23 

but joy walked hand in hand with duty whenever it legitimately 
could.] 

I do not want 3rou not to miss me, but remember that I would 
never have felt satisfied with myself after this war is over if I 
had done nothing, and that I do feel now that I am only doing 
my duty. I know you will not rq;ret having me do what is 
ijghty and I do not believe you will love me any the less for it. 

Yours as ever, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

This particular letter is very characteristic of the father of 
President Roosevelt — a man of the qualities which his country 
has grown to associate with its beloved ''Colonel." In my 
brother's case they were the direct inheritance from the man who 
stood out knee-deep in mud using his wonderful personality 
to make those hard-faced drafted men remember their own 
people at home, and at the same time writes to the lovely mother 
of his childxen to try and enjoy herself as much as possible in 
his absence. 

My mother's answers to my father's letters were very lov- 
ing. Alone, and delicate, she never dwells on loneliness or ill 
health, but tells him the dear details of the home he loved so 
well. On January 8, 1862, she writes: ''Teedie came down stairs 
this morning looking rather sad, and said 'I fed badly — ^I have 
a tooth ache in my stomach.' — slater he asked if 'Dod' (God) was 
a fox ? ! — this after being shown a picture of a very clever looking 
fox ! He is the most affectionate and endearing little creature 
in his ways." One can well imagine how the lonely father, doing 
his distant and gruelling duty, treasured the dainty letters full 
of quaint stories of childish sayings. In another and later mis- 
sive there is a description of a birthday supper-party in which 
''Teedie" is host to his cousins; it runs as follows: ^'Teedie, 
the host, was too busy with his chicken and potatoes to con- 
verse much, but as soon as he finished he made the sage remark 
that he 'loved chicken, roast beef and eveiything that was good 



24 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

better than salt water/ This speech occasioned a roar of 
laughter, and was evidently thought very witty. Teedie, too, 
seemed to be under the false impression that it was clever. He 
seemed to be inflated with vanity for some time afterwards t " 
How gladly the tired man, after long days in the saddle, and 
evenings of effort with sullen soldiers, must have turned to just 
such humorous accoimts of the small boy who always said or 
did something quaint, which lost nothing in the picture drawn 
by the facile pen of his mother. 

Theodore Roosevelt writes his wife again in January, 1862, 
a letter interesting because of his attitude toward the German 
regiments. He says: 

''We are continually at work now, and to-day saw three 
regiments, but even at this rate, it will be long before I see you 
again. They were all Germans to-day — ^a motiey crew, having 
few friends and frequentiy no characters. We had been told 
that we ran the risk of our lives by going to these regiments, and 
much more nonsense of the same kind, but the only risk we 
ran has been from starvation. We were out talking to the men 
until very late, and then found a German dinner which Dodge 
could eat nothing of but the brown bread. He wanted to be 
polite, however, and I was much amused with his statement 
that he would ride five miles to get such bread, yMch was 
literally a fact, however, I have no doubt, in his state of star- 
vation. 

"The men, as Germans always do, took time to consider, 
and we left them to describe the allotment idea to other per- 
sons. However, after due consideration, a fair number sent 
money home. These Germans were generally of the lowest char- 
acters, and with the exception of one regiment disappointed me, 
although I have no doubt they will fight well. There are some 
X2,ooo of them. 

''This morning I saw that our efforts are noticed in The World 
and The Tribune. You have seen, I suppose, that we have been 
mentioned several times in The Times. This is particularly 



The Nursery and Its Deities 25 

satisfying as the papeis threatened once to be down on us, which 
would lose for us the confidence of the soldiers." 

The letters all give vivid accounts of his experienoes, differ- 
ing in interest. He speaks of General Wadsworth, the grand- 
father of our present United States senator, and says that the 
general ''helped to make my bed when I spent one night with 
his division." 

In an interim of work, on February 7, he writes of his invi- 
tation to Mrs. Lincoln's ball, at which he says he had a delight- 
ful time. 

''Mrs. Lincoln in giving the Ball, stated that she gave it as 
a i»ece of economy in war time, and included those diplo- 
mats, senators, congressmen and others, that it had been pre- 
viously the habit to invite at a number of formal dinners. No 
one lower in the army than the Division General, — ^not even a 
Brigadier, had an invitation to the Ball, and of course there 
was much grumbling and a proportionate amount of envy. Some 
complained of the supper, but I have rarely seen a better, and 
often a worse one. Terrapin, birds, ducks, and everything else 
in great profusion when I was in the dining room, although some 
complained of the delay in getting into the room, as we went 
in parties. 

"I spent all of yesterday kicking my heels in the ante-room 
of the Secretary of War, and in making out an order for him 
which he promised to sign and afterwards refused. [How his- 
tory repeats itself!] I was with him about two hours, alto- 
gether, and received any number of the highest kind of com- 
pliments, but I wanted a more important proof of his good 
feeling which I did not get. I still hope that I may get it 
through the President.'' 

On February 12, 1862, comes this description of the delight- 
ful visit to Newport News and he says: 

"All the officers received us in such a hospitable spirit and 
the weather assisted in making our stay agreeable. I passed 
two of the pleasantest days that I have enjoyed when away from 



26 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

home. General Mansfield suggested some practioe with the 
panot gun, and one of those sad accidents occurred^ for a gun 
burst and two men were killed. 

''We have been treated like princes here. The steamboat 
was put at our disposal and when, through a m&understandmg, 
it left before we were on board, another one was immediately 
sent with us. I enclose several things to keep for me.'' 

Amongst the enclosures was a note which is suffidentiy in- 
teresting to give in facsimile. 

executive icansion, washington 
Mr. Rosevalt. 

Dear Sir: 

I very much rq;retted that a severe headache confined me 

to my room on yesterday, this morning I find we are expected 

to hold a noon recq>tion which will be over by three and a half 

o'clock at which time I will be very happy to have you 

ride with us. \t s. \ 

Very truly yours 

Mss. A. Lincoln. 

This quaint missive reminds me of the fact of my father's 
kindly tolerance of ''Mrs. A. Lincoln's" little peculiarities. I 
remember how he used to tell us^ when occasionally he was in- 
vited, as this letter says, to "ride" with her, that he would also 
be invited to stop at the shop where she bought her bonnets, 
and give his advice on which bonnet was especially becoming I 

In an earlier letter, after referring to an interview with Secre- 
tary Stanton, he speaks of his apparent decision of character. 
But he was disappointed when he could not, in the begianing, 
make the secretaiy take his point of view about the Allotment 
Commission. Later, however, he received the full support of 
Secretary Stanton. 

In a letter dated February 5 he speaks of ''justified plea- 
sure" as follows: 

I find that only about six men under fifty [he himself 



<(' 



Cnrstiit SNiiiti, 



^2^ ^^ 




0^ ^' 




^^ f^^^^- 





AK INVITATION FROM THE WIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Sk. 



27 



28 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

was only twenty-nine] are invited to the President's to-night, 
and I have determined to go for a short time, at least There 
will be the largest collection of notables there ever gathered in 
this country, and it would probably be a sight worth remember- 
ing/' 

Under date of Washington, February 14, he writes again: 

''I have so many acquaintances here now that I could easily 
find a temporary companion. Hay [John Hay] is going with 
me to Seward's to-night, and I am hoping to procure the pass 
for your mother. [My grandmother was most anxious to get 
back to her own people in the South]. In Baltimore I saw, 
or fancied I saw, on the faces of our class of the inhabitants, 
their feelings in consequence of the news just received of the 
taking of Roanoke Island. They looked very blue. The sut- 
lers here are serious obstacles in getting allotments. As soon 
as lev see a R^ment and persuade the men to make allotments, 
they send aroimd an agent to dissuade them from signing thdr 
names, convincing them that it is a swindle because they want 
the money to be spent in Camp and go into their pockets in- 
stead of being sent home to the poor families of the men, who 
are in such want. 

''I enclose you a flower from the bouquet on the table of 
the Executive Mansion. Also a piece of silk from an old-fash- 
ioned piano cover in Arlington House." 

As I opened the letter, the flower fell to dust in my hands, 
but the little piece of green silk, faded and worn, had evidently 
been treasured by my mother as being a relic of Arlington House. 

On February 27, 1862, his stay in Washington was drawing 
to a dose, and my father regretted, as so many have done, that 
he had not kept a diary of his interesting experiences. He writes 
on September 27: 

''All those whom I have seen here in Washington in social 
intercourse day by day will be characters in history, and it would 
be pleasant to look over a diary hereafter of my own impressions 
of them, and recall their utterly different views upon the policy 



The Nursery and Its Deities 29 

which should be pursued by the Government I have rarely 
been able to leave my room in the evening, for it has been so 
filled with visitors, but I have not felt the loss of liberty from the 
fact that those who were my guests I would have taken a great 
deal of trouble to see, and never could have seen so informally 
and pleasantly anywhere excq>t in my own room. 

''It has, of course, been more my duty to entertain those 
whose hospitality I was daily receiving, in the camps, by invi- 
tations to drop in during the evening; all of these are striving 
to make their marks as statesmen, and some, I am sure, we will 
hear from hereafter." 

On March i, 1862, he says: 

We have all been in a state of excitement for some dasrs 
past, caused by movements in the Army foreshadowing a gen- 
eral battle. The snow which is now falling fast, has cast a 
damper over all our spirits. • . • Several of the Generals have 
stated to me their belief that the war, as far as there was any 
necessity for so large an army, would be dosed by some time in 
May, — probably the first of May. If so, my work will be all 
over when I return to New York, and I can once more fed that 
I have a wife and children, and enjoy them. 

It is Sunday afternoon, and I have a peculiar longing to 
see you all again, the quiet snow falling outside, my own feelings 
being very sad and that of those around being in the same con- 
dition makes me turn to my own quiet fireside for comfort. I 
wish we sympathized together on this question of so vital mo- 
ment to our coimtry, but I know you cannot understand my 
feelings, and of course I do not expect it. 

YouK Loving Husband Who Wants 

Very Much to See You. 

One can well imagine the note of sadness in the strong young 
man who had relinquished his urgent desire to bear arms because 
of the peculiar situation in which he found himself, but who 



30 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

gave all his time and thought and physical enduranoe to the 
work vitally needed, and which he felt he could have handled 
better with the sympathy of his yoimg wife, whose anxiety 
about her mother and brothers was so poignant and distress- 
ing. Never, however, in the many letters exchanged between 
the parents of my brother, Theodore Roosevelt, was there one 
word which was calculated to make less possible the dose family 
love and the great respect for each other's feelings. 

In the last letter quoted above, one feels again that history 
does indeed repeat itself, when one thinks that it was written 
in March, 1862, and that those ^'generals'' of whom my father 
speaks were expecting that no large army would be needed after 
May I of that year, when in reality the long agony of dvil 
war was to rack our bdoved country for nearly three years more. 
This was proven shortly after to my father, and in the following 
October he is writing again from Baltimore, and this time in a 
less wistful mood: 

Since I last wrote you I have enjoyed my pleasantest ex^ 
periences as Allotment Commissioner. The weather was lovdy 
our horses good and Major Dix accompanied us from the For^ 
tress to Yorktown« It was about twenty-five miles of historic 
ground passing over the same country that General McClellan 
had taken his army along last spring. 

First comes the ruins of the Uttle town of Hampton, then 
through Big Bethd where Schanck was whipped, to the ap^ 
proaches to Yorktown. There ravines have been cut throu^ 
miles of roads made, and immense breastworks thrown up by 
our army. 

Su}rdam was away but the rest of General Keyes' staff 
recdved us most hospitably, and after dinner furnished us with 
fresh horses to visit the regiments, one of their number accom- 
panying us. 

I had practise for both my French and German in the En- 
fans Perdus, Colond Comfort's regiment and it was quite late 



The Nursery and Its Deities 31 

befote our return. As I had broken my ey^Iasses I had to 
trust entirely to my hoise who jumped over the ditches in a 
most independent manner. We all sat up together until about 
twelve except Bronson who had seemed used up all day, and 
had not accompanied me to the regiments. He seemed to feel 
the shock of the fall when the car ran off the track, and not to 
recover from it so easily as myself. 

Next morning we rode another twenty-five miles to New- 
port News to see the Irish Brigade. General Corcoran was 
there, and accompanied us to the regiments first suggesting 
Irish whiskey to strengthen us. At dinner ale was the beverage 
and after dinner each Colonel seemed to have his own particular 
tope. On our return they made an Irish drink called "seal thim'^ 
and about one o'clock gave us "devilled bones." The servant 
was invited in to sing for us and fumished with drinks at odd 
times by the General, who never indulged, however, himself 
to excess. We then went the grand rounds with the General 
at two in the morning, arrested two officers for not being at thdr 
posts and returned at half past three, well prepared to rest quietly 
after a very fatiguing day, and one of the most thoroughly Irish 
nights that I ever passed. 

Next morning (yesterday) we had a delightful ride over 
to Fortress Moxm)e, and had lunch at General Dix's before leav- 
ing in the boat 

A dozen of the officers were down at the boat, and we felt 
as we bid goodbye to some of them, like leaving old friends. « « . 

Dearest: a few words more and I must dose. Bronson has 
a very bad cold and decides that he will leave me to-morrow. 
If well enough he will undoubtedly call on you. Of course this 
makes me doubly homesick but I must see it through. 

Goodbye, Yoius as ever, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Again on October 18, having apparently been able to return 
for a brief visit to his family, he writes from Niagara: 



32 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

^'I was able to get a top berth and retired for the 3xst dme 
in two months to spend the night on the raihoad. My three 
nights at home have made it hard, rather than easier, to con- 
tinue my journeys. 

''All our party started from Albany to Fonda, and I had 
a hard day's work for the men had been deceived by the bounty 
and weie suspicious about everything rq^arding the Allotment 
Commission. The officers' dinner was a good deal like pigs 
eating at a trough. When at night three companies had not 
yet been visited, I detennined to do it wholesale. I had two 
tents pitched and occupied one already prepared, placing a 
table, candles and allotment roll in each. I then had the three 
companies formed into three sides of a square and used all my 
eloquence. When I had finished they cheered me vociferously. 
I told them I would be better able to judge who meant the cheers 
by seeing which company made most allotments. [This sen- 
tence of my father's makes me think so much of my brother's 
familiar ''shoot; don't shout I "when he would receive vociferous 
cheers for any advice given.] I thus raised the spirit of ohu- 
petition and those really were the best that I had taken during 
the day. By eight o'dock we found our woik done, dark as 
pitch, and rain descending in torrents, but still the work was 
done." 

These letters give, I think, a vivid picture of my father's 
persistence and determined character, and the quality of "getting 
there," which was so manifestly the quality of his son as well, 
and at the same time the power of enjoyment, the natural af- 
filiation with his humankind, and always the thoughtfulness 
and consideration for his young wife left with her little charges 
at home. 

In that same home the spirit of the war permeated through 
the barriers of love raised aroimd the little children of the nurs- 
ery, and my aimt writes of the attitude of the small, yellow- 
haired boy into whose childish years came also the distant din 
of battle, arousing in him the military spirit which even at four 



f • 



The Nursery and Its Deities 33 

years of age had to take some ezpressioiL She says: ''Yester- 
day Teedie was really ezdted when I said to htm that I must 
fit his zouave suit His little face flushed up and he said, 'Are 
me a soldier laddie too?' and when I took his suggestion and 
said, 'Yes and I am the Captain/ he was willing to stand for a 
moment or two to be fitted.'' Even then Theodore Roosevelt 
responded to his country's calli and equally to the discipline of 
the superior officer ! 



n 

GREEN FIELDS AND FOREIGN Fa£nG 

FROM the nurseiy in 20th Street my early memories turn 
with even greater happiness to the coimtry place which 
my parents rented at Madison, N. J., called Loantaka, 
where we spent several summers. There the joy of a sorrel 
Shetland pony became ours — (Pony Grant was his name) — a 
patriotic c^ort to commemorate the name of the great general, 
still on the lips of every one, whose indomitable will and mili- 
tary acumen had at that very moment been the chief factor in 
bringing the Civil War to a dose. I, however, labored under 
the delusion that he, the general, was named after the pony, 
which seemed to me at the time much the more important of 
the two personalities. The four-lagged Grant was quite as de- 
termined and aggressive as his two-lagged namesake, and he 
never aDowed any of us to be his master. When my father 
first had him brought to the front door of the country home at 
Madison, I shall never forget the thrill of excitement in the 
breasts of the three little children of the nursery. ''Who will 
jump on his back?" called out my father gaily. 

It has always been the pride of my life that, although I was 
only about four years old, I b^ged for the privilege before the 
"boys" were quite ready to decide whether to dare the ferocious 
glance in his dark ^es. Owing to my temerity he was presented 
to me, and bom that time on was only a loan to my brothers. 
Each in turn, however, we- would dimb on his back, and each 
in turn would be rq)eatedly thrown over his head, but having 
shown his ability to eject, he would then, satisfied by thus prov- 
ing his superiority, become gentle as a really gentle lamb. I 

34 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 35 

qualify my reference to lambs, remembering well the singularly 
ungentle lamb which later became a pet also in the family. 

In those country days before the advent of the motor, the 
woods and lanes of New Jersey were safe haunts for happy 
childhood, and we were given much liberty, and, accompanied 
by our two little cousins from Savannah, John and Maud Elliott, 
who spent those two summers with us, having suffered greatly 
from the devastating war, we roamed at will, leading or riding 
our pony, playing endless games, or making believe we were 
Indians — always responsive to some stoiy of Theodore's which 
seemed to cast a glamour around our environment 

I can still feel the somewhat uncanny thrill with which I 
received the suggestion that a large reddish stain on a rock in 
the woods near by was the blood of a white gbrl, lately killed 
by the chief of the Indian tribe, to which through many mys- 
terious rites we were supposed to belong. I remember entidng 
there in the twilight our very Hibernian kitchen-maid, and 
taking delight in her shrieks of terror at the sight of the so-called 
blood. 

My brother always felt in later years, and carried the feel- 
ing into practice with his own children, that liberty in the sum- 
mer-time, for a certain period at least, stimulated greatly the 
imagination of a child. To rove unhampered, to people the 
surroundings with one's own creations, to watch the habits of 
the feathered or furry creatures, and insensibly to react to the 
beauty of wood and wind and water — all this leaves an indelible 
impression on the malleable nature of a young child, and we 
five happy cousins, in spite of Theodore's constant delicacy, were 
aUowed this wonderful freedom to assimilate what nature had 
to give. 

I never once remember that we came to the ''grown people" 
with that often-heard question ''What shall we do next ?" The 
days never seemed long enough, the howcs flew on golden wings. 
Often there would be days of suffering for my brother, even in 
the soft summer weather, but not as acute as in the winter-time. 



36 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

and though my father or my aunt frequently had to take Theo- 
dore for change of air to one place or another, and rarely, even 
at his beat, could he sleep without being propped up in bed or 
in a big chair, still his spirit was so strong and so recuperative 
that when I thiok of my earliest country memories, he seems 
always there, leading, suggesting, explaining, as all through my 
life when the nurseiy was a thing of the past and the New Jersey 
woodlands a faint though fair green memory, he was always 
beside me, leading, suggesting, explaining stilL 

It was in those very woodlands that his more accurate in- 
terest in natural history began. We others— normal and not 
particulariy intelligent little children— joyed in the delights of 
the country, in our games and our liberty, but he was not only 
a leader for us in ever3rthing, but he also led a life apart from 
us, seriously studying the birds, their habits and their notes, 
80 that years afterward the result of those long hours of ^^^ilHiali 
concentration took form in his expert knowledge of bird life 
and lore— so expert a knowledge that even Mr. John Burroughs, 
the great nature specialist, conceded him equality of informa- 
tion with himself along those lines. 

It was at Lowantaka, at the breakfast-table one day, after 
my father had taken the train to New York — this was the second 
year of our domicile there, and the sad war was over— that my 
mother received a peculiar-looking letter. I remember her 
f aoe of puzzled interest as she opened it and the flush that came 
to her cheek as she turned to my aunt and said: ''Oh, Anna, 
this must be from Irvine I" and read aloud what would now seem 
like a ''perBonal" on a page of the New York Herald. It was 
as follows: 

"If Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and Miss Anna Bulloch will 
walk in Central Park up the Mall, at 3 o'clock on Thursday 
afternoon of this week [it was then Tuesday] and notice a young 
man standing under the third tree on the left with a red hand- 
kerchief tied around his throat, it will be of interest to them." 

As my mother finished reading the letter she burst into tears, 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 37 

for it was long since the younger brother had been heard from, 
as tlie amnesty granted to all those taking part in the Rebellion 
had not been extended to those who had gone to England, as 
had my two undes, to assist in the building and the sailing of 
the Alabama, and letters from them were considered too dan- 
gerous to be received. 

This ''Irvine" had been saved when the Alabama sank, after 
her brief career, and the two brothers had settled in Liverpool, 
and my mother knowing the great sorrow that his mother's death 
had meant to this younger brother, had always longed during 
the intervening months to see him and tell him of that mother's 
undying devotion, though she herself had passed away the year 
before. 

It seemed now to the active imaginations of the Southern 
sisters that somehow or other Irvine had braved the authori- 
ties, and would be able to see them and hear from their lips the 
story of the past five years. 

One can well imagine the excitement of the children around 
the breakfast-table at the romantic meeting suggested by the 
anonymous letter. And so, on the following Thursday, the 
two sisters went in to New York and walked up the Mall in Cen- 
tral Park, and there, standing under the third tree to the left, 
was the young man — a thin, haggard-looking young man com- 
pared to the round-faced boy with whom they had parted so 
long ago, but eagerly waiting to get from them the last news 
of the mother who had hoped she would die before any harm 
could befall him. He had worked his way over in the steerage 
of a sailing-vessel under an assumed name, for he was afraid 
of bringing some trouble on my father, and had taken the 
method of the anonymous letter to bring to him the sisters he 
had loved and missed so sorely. 

What a meeting it must have been imder that ''third tree 
to the left" of the old Mall of Central Park, and what reminis- 
cences of happier childhood days those three must have indulged 
in in the hnd hour which the brother could give his sisters be- 



38 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

fore sailing back across the broad ocean, for he did not dare meet 
them again for fear of some mipleasant results for the Northern 
brother-in-IaWy for whom he had great admiration. 

Later, of course, my uncles were given the right to return 
to their own countiy, but although they often visited us, they 
never settled in America again, having rooted their business 
interests on English soil, though their hearts always turned 
loyally to the countiy of their birth* 

In taking into consideration the immediate forebears of my 
brother, Theodore Roosevelt, I would once more repeat that 
to arrive at a true comprehension of his many-sided character 
one must realize the combination of personalities and the dif- 
ferent strains of blood in those personalities from whom he was 
descended in summing up the man he was. 

The stability, and wisdom of the old Dutch blood, the gaiety 
and abandon of the Irish strain that came through the female 
side of his father's people, and on his mother's side the great 
loyalty of the Scotch and the fieiy self-devotion of the French 
Huguenot martyrs, mixed as it was with the light touch which 
shows in French blood of whatever strain — all this combined 
to make of the boy bom of so varied an ancestry one who was 
akin to all human nature. 

In April, 1868, the little boy of nine and a half shows him- 
self, indeed, as father to the man in several characteristic letters 
which I insert here. They were written to his mother and 
father and the little sister Conie when the above members of the 
family were paying a visit to Savannah, and are as follows: 



^, ^ ^, New York April 28th, 1868. 

My Dear Mamma 

I have just received your letter I What an excitement I 
How nice to read it. What long letters you do write. I don't 
see how you can write them. My mouth opened wide with 
astonishment when I heard how many flowers were sent in to 
you. I could revel in the buggie ones. I jumped with delight 



Green Fidds and Foreign Faring 39 

when I found you bad heaid a mocking-bird. Get some of its 
feathets if you can. Thank Johnny for the feathers of the aol' 
dier's cap, give him my love also. We cried when you wrote 
^XHit Grand-Mamma. Give My love to the good natured (to 
use your own eapresion) handsome lion, Conie, Johnny, Maud, 
andAuntLucy. lamsorrythetreeshavebeencutdown. Aunt 
Annie, Edith and Ellie send their love to you and all, I send mine 
to. I send this picture to Conie. In the letters you write to 
me tell me how many curiosities and living things you have got 
for me. I miss Conie very much. I wish I were with you and 
Johnny for I could hunt for myself. There is Conie's letter. 

My Deax Conie: 

As I wrote so much in Mamma's letter I cannot write so 
mu(± in yours. I have got four mice, two white skined, red 
eyed velvety creatures, very tame for I let them run all over 
me, they trie to get down the bade of my neck and under my 
vest, and two brown skined, black eyed, soft as the others but 
wilder. Lordy and Rosa are the names of the white mice, which 
are male and female. I keq) them in different cages 
White mouse cage. broim mouse c^e. 




.. _ _ -He^^^ -t/KcX o^"^^^ 



40 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

My Dear Papa 

You can all read each other's letters. I hear you were very 
seasick on your voyage and that Dora and Conie were seaside 
before }rou passed Sandy-hook. Give my greatest love to 
Johnny. You must write too. Wont you drive Mamma to 
some battle field for she is going to get me some trophies? I 
would like to have them so very much. I will have to stop now 
because Aunty wants me to kam my lessons. 

The chaffinch is for you. The wren for Mamma. The cat 

forConie. •, i • i 

Yours lovingly, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
P« S. I liked your peas so much that I ate half of them. 



My Dear Father ^^ ^"^^^ ^^"^ ^^' '^*- 

I received your letter yesterday. Your letter was more 
ezdting than Mother's. I have a request to ask of you, will 
you do it? I hope you will, if }rou will it will figure greatly in 
my museum. You know what supple jacks are, do you not? 
Please get one for EUie and two for me. Ask your friend to let 
you cut off the tiger-cat's tail, and get some long moos and have 
it mated together. One of the supple jacks (I am talking of 
mine now) must be about as thick as your thumb and finger. 
The other must be as thick as your thumb. The one which is 
as thick as your finger and thumb must be four feet long and 
the other must be three feet long. One of my nolce got crushed. 
It was the mouse I liked best though it was a common mouse. 
Its name was Brownie. Nothing particular has happened since 
you went away for I cannot go out in the coimtry like you can. 
The trees and the vine on our piazza are buding and the grass 
is green as can be, and no one would dream that it was winter 
so short a time ago. AU send love to all of you. 

Yours lovin^y, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 41 

Tlie ''ezdtement'' referred to in the first letter was the won- 
derful reception accorded to my mother on her return to the 
dty of her giilhood days. Her rooms in the hotel in Savannah 
were filled by her friends with flowers — ^and how she loved flowers 
— ^but not the '^buggie ones" in which her young naturalist son 
says he would "revel 1" 

One can see the ardent little bird-lover as he wrote "I jumped 
with delight when I found you had heard a mocking-bird," and 
again when he says "Tell me how many curiosities and living 
things you have got for me." Insatiable lover of knowledge 
as he was, it was difficult indeed for his parents to keq> pace 
with his thirst for "outward and visible signs of the things that 
be." 

More than fifty years have passed since the painstaking pen- 
ning of the childish letters, but the heart of his sister in reading 
them thrills hotly at the thought that the little " Conie" of those 
days was "very much" missed by her idolized brother, and how 
she treasured the letter written all for her, with the pictures 
of the cages in which he kept his beloved mice! It was sad 
that the pictures of the chaffinch, wien, and cat, evidently en- 
closed for each of the travellers, should have been lost. In the 
two letters to his father he enlists that comrade-father's services 
for his adored "museum" by the plea for "trophies from some 
battle field," and the urgent request for the "supple jack," the 
nature of which exciting article I confess I do not understand. 
I do imdetstand, however, his characteristic distress that "one 
of my niice got crushed. It was the mouse I liked best though 
it was a common mouse." That last sentence brought the tears 
to my eyes. How true to type it was I the "coromon mouse" 
was the one he liked best of all — ^never the rare, exotic thing, 
but the every-day, the plain, the simple, and he probably liked 
it so much just because that little "common mouse" had shown 
courage and vitality and affection ! All through Theodore Roose- 
velt's life it was to the plain simple things and to the plain simple 
people that he gave his most loyal devotion. 



42 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

In May, 1869, because of a great desire on the part of my 
mother to visit her brothers in En^and^ as well as to see the 
Old World of which she had read and studied so much, she per- 
suaded my father to take the whole family abroad. 

After those early summers at Madison, which still stand out 
so dearly in my memory, there OHnes a less vivid recollection 
of months passed at the beautiful old place at Barrytown, on 
the Hudson River, which my parents rented from Mr. John 
Aspinwall, and where a wonderful rushing brook played a big 
part in the joys of our holiday months. 

We ''younger ones" longed for another summer at this 
charming spot and regretted, with a certain amount of suspicion, 
the dedsion of the '* Olympians'' to drag us from our leafy haunts 
to improve our rebellious young minds, but my parents were 
firm in their decision, and we started on the old paddle-wheel 
steamship ScoHa, as I have said, in May, 1869. 

In a letter from my mother to my aimt, who had married 
Mr. James King Grade, and was therefore regretfully left be- 
hind, she described with an easy pen some incidents of the voy- 
age across the ocean, as follows: 

''Elliott is the leader of children's sports and plays with the 
little ^l^thrq) children aU day. A short while ago Thee made 
up his mind suddenly that Teedie must play too, so himted 
up the little fellow who was deeply enjoying a conversation with 
the only acquaintance he has made, a little man, whom we call 
the 'one too many man,' for he seems to go about with no ac- 
quaintances. His name is Mr. St. John and he is a quaint little 
well of knowledge, — ^very fond of natural history and fills 
Teedie's heart with delight. Teedie brought hun up and 
introduced hun to me, his eyes dandng with delight and he con- 
stantly asks me, 'Mamma, have you really conversed with Mr. 
St. John?' I fed so tenderly to Teedie, that I actually stopped 
reading the 'Heir of Reddiffe,' and talked to the poor little man 
who has heart complaint so badly that his voice is even affected 
by it. 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 43 



Ml 



The two little boys were pietty seasick on Sunday and 
I do not know what I should have done without Robert, the 
bedroom steward, and an amiable deck steward, who waits on 
those who remain on deck at meals. He seems a wonderfully 
constructed creature, having amiable knobs all over his body, 
upon which he supports more bowls of soup and plates of eat- 
ables than you can imagine, all of which he serves out, panting 
over you while you take your plate, with such wide extended 
nostrils that they take in the Irish coast, and the draught from 
them cools the soup ! 

''Anna, — ^the carpet in my stateroom is filled with organic 
matter which, if distilled, would make a kind of anchovy paste, 
only fit to be the appetizer before the famous 'witches' broth,' 
the receipt for which Shakespeare gives in '* Macbeth," — ^but on 
the whole the Scotia is well ordered and deaner than I had ex- 
pected. 

"On Sunday morning Thee was sick and while in bed, little 
Conie came into the room. He looked down from his upper 
berth, looking like a straw-colored Cockatoo, butJConie stopped 
in the noiddle of what she was saying and said, 'Oh Papa I you 
have such a lovely little curl on your forehead' with a note of 
great admiration in her voice and meaning it all, reattyj but her 
position looking up, and his looking down reminded me forcibly 
of the picture of the flattered crow who dropped his cheese when 
the fox complimented him 1" 

This letter, perhaps, more than almost any other, gives the 
quaint humor and also the tenderness of my mother's attitude 
toward her children and husband. 

On our arrival in Liverpool we were greeted by the Bulloch 
undes, and from that time on the whole European trip was 
one of interest and deUght to the "grown people." My older 
sister, though not quite fifteen, was so unusually mature and 
intelligent that she shared their enjoyment, but the journey 
was of rather mitigated pleasure to the three "little ones," who 
much preferred the nursery at 28th East 20th Street, or their 



44 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

free summer activities in wood and field, to the picture-galleries 
and museums, or even to the wonderful S¥ri8S mountaiDS where 
they had to be so carefully guarded. 

In the letters written faithfully to our beloved aunt, the 
note of homesickness is always apparent. 

Our principal delight was in what we used to call ''explor- 
ing'' when we first arrived at a hotel, and in the occasional inter- 
course with children of our own age, or, as in Teedie's case, 
with some expert along the line of his own interests, but the 
writing and receiving of home letters stand out more strongly 
than aJmost any other memory of this time, and amongst those 
most treasured by Teedie and myself were the little missives 
written by our most intimate friend, Edith Kermit Carow, a 
little girl who was to have, in later days, the most potent in- 
fluence of all over the life of Theodore Roosevelt. How little 
she thought when she wrote to her friend ''Conie'' from Red- 
bank, November 19, 1869, ''I was much pleased at receiving 
your kind letter telling me all about Teedie's birthday," that 
one day that very Teedie would be President Theodore Roose- 
velt and Edith Kermit Carow the mistress of the White House. 

The old friendship of our parents for Mr. and Mrs. Carow, 
who Uved with Mr. Carow's older sister, Mrs. Robert Keimit, 
in a large house backing up against the 14th Street mansion of 
Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, was the natural 
factor in the relationship of the younger generation, and little 
Edith Carow and little Corione Roosevelt were pledged friends 
from the time of their birth. 

The ''Teedie" of those days expressed always a homesick 
feeling when ''Edie's" letters came. They seemed to fill him 
with a strong longing for his native land I 

In the littie note written on yellow, very minute writuig- 
paper, headed by a satis^ed-looldng cat, ''Edie" expresses the 
wish that ''Teedie" could have been with her on a late picnic, 
and "Teedie," I am equally sure, wished for her presence at his 
eleventh-birthday festivities, which were described by my sister 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 45 

Anna in a letter to our aunt, Mrs. James King Grade. I quote 
a few lines from that letter, for again its contents show the beau- 
tiful devotion of my father and mother and sister to the delicate 
little boy — ^the devotion which always put their own wishes or 
arrangements aside when the terrible attacks of asthma came, 
for those attacks seemed to make them feel that no plan was 
too definite or important to change at once should '^Teedie's" 
health require it My sister writes, the letter being dated from 
Brussels, October 30, 1869: 

''Last Thursday was dear little Teedie's birthday; he was 
eleven years old. We all determined to lay ourselves out on 
that occasion, for we all feared that he would be homesick, — ^for 
he is a great little home-boy. It passed off very nicely indeed. 
We had to leave Berlin suddenly the night before, for 'Teedie' 
was not veiy well; so we left Berlin on Wednesday night at 
dght o'clock and arrived at Cologne on Thursday mormng about 
nine. You can imagine it was a very long trip for the three 
little children, although they really bore it better than we three 
older ones. [She one of the older ones at fourteen and a half!] 
It was a bitterly cold night and snowed almost all the time. 
Think of a snowstorm on the night of the 27th of October ! Tee- 
die was delighted at having had a snow storm on his birthday 
morning, for he had never had tfuU before. When we reached 
Cologne we went to the same hotel, and had the same nice rooms 
which we had had on our former stay there, and that of course 
made us feel very much more at home. Teedie ordered the 
breakfast, and they all had 'real tea' as a very great treat, and 
then Teedie ordered the dinner, at which we were all requested 
to appear in full dress; so Mamma came in her beautiful white 
silk dinner dress, and Papa in dress coat and light kid gloves. 
I was very cold, so only wore silk. After Teedie's dinner Papa 
brought in all his presents. They, Mamma and Papa, gave 
eadi of the three, writing desks marked with their names and 
filled with all the conveniences. Then Teedie received a num- 
ber of smaller presents as well." 



46 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

What parents, indeed, so fully to understand the romantic 
feeling of the little boy about his birthday dinner, that they 
were more than willing to don their most beautiful habiliments, 
and appear as they had so lately appeared when received at 
the Vienna CourtI Such yielding to what by many people 
might have been considered as too childish a whim to be coun- 
tenanced shows with special clearness the quality in my father 
and mother which inspired in us all such undsong adoration. 
Another letter— not written by my older sister, but in the pains- 
taking handwriting of a little girl of seven — describes my own 
party the month before. We were evidently stasdng in Vienna 
at the time, for I say: '*We went to SchSnbrunn, a 'shatto.' ** 
(More frequently known as a ch&teau, but qtiite as thrilling to 
my childish mind spelled in my own unique manner I) And there 
in the lovely grounds my mother had arranged a charming al 
fresco supper for the little homesick American girl, and just 
as the "grown people" were in "full dress" for "Teedie's" birth- 
day, so they gave themselves up in the grounds of the great 
'^shatto" to making merry for the Uttle seven-year-old girL 

After the great excitements of the birthdays came our interest- 
ing sojourn in Rome. In spite of my mother's efforts to arouse 
a somewhat abortive interest in art in the hearts of the three 
little children, my principal recollections of the Rome of 1869 
are from the standpoint of the splendid romps on the Pindan 
Hill. In those contests of running and racing and leaping my 
brother Elliott was always the leader, although "Teedie" did 
his part whenever his health pennitted. One scene stands out 
clearly in my mind. It was a beautiful day, one of those sunny 
ItaUan days when ilez and olive shone with a special glistening 
quality, and when the '^ Eternal City" as viewed from the high 
hill awoke even in the hearts of the little Philistine foreigners 
a subconscious thrill which they themselves did not qtiite under- 
stand. We were playing with the Lawrence children, playing 
leap-frog (how inappropriate to the Pindan Hill I) over the many 
posts, when suddenly there came a stir — ^an unexpected ezdte- 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 47 

xnent seemed everywhere. Word was passed that the Pope 
was coming. '^Teedie'' whispered to the little group of Amer- 
ican children that he didn't believe in popes — ^that no real Amer- 
ican would; and we all fdt it was due to the stars and strq)es 
that we should share his attitude of distant disapproval. But 
then, as is often the case, the miracle happened, for the crowd 
partedi and to our ezated, childish eyes something very much 
like a scene in a story-book took place. The Pope, who was in 
his sedan-chair carried by bearers in beautiful costumes, his be- 
nign face framed in white hair and the close cap which he wore, 
caught sight of the group of eager little children craning their 
necks to see him pass; and he smiled and put out one fragile, 
delicate hand toward us, and, lo 1 the late sco£fer who, in spite of 
the ardent Americanism that burned in his eleven-year-old soul, 
had as much reverence as militant patriotism in his nature, fell 
upon his knees and kissed the delicate hand, which for a brief 
moment was laid upon his fair curling hair. Whenever I think 
of Rome this memory comes back to me, and in a way it was so 
true to the character of my brother. The Pope to him had al- 
ways meant what later he would have called '^ unwarranted 
superstition," but that Pope, Pio Nono, the kindly, benign old 
man, the moment he appeared in the flesh brought about in my 
brother's heart the reaction which always came when the pure, 
the good, or the true crossed his path. 

Amongst my mother's efforts to interest us in art there was 
one morning when she decided positively that her little girl, 
at least, should do something more in keeping with the '' Eternal 
City" than plasdng leap-frog on the Pindan Hill, and so, a re- 
luctant captive, I was borne away to the Vatican Galleries, and 
was there initiat<yl into the beauties of some of the frescos and 
scu^ture. My mother, who I have already said was a natural 
connoisseur in all art, had especial admiration for that wonder- 
ful piece of scu^ture from the hand of Michael Angelo known 
as ''The Torso of the Vatican." This work of art stood alone 
in a small room, so that nothing else should take away from its 



4$ My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

effect As those who know it well need hardty be told, it lacks 
both annaajid both legs, and to the little girl who was summarily 
placed by her mother in the only chair in the small room, it 
seemed a veiy strange creation. But, with the hope of arousing 
artistic instinct, my lovely mother said: ^'Now, darling, this 
is one of the greatest works of art in the world, and I am going 
to leave you here alone for five minutes, because I want you 
to sit very quietly and look at it, and perhaps when I come back 
in the five minutes you will be able to realize how beautiful it 
is/' And then I saw my mother's slender figure vanish into 
another room. Having been always accustomed to obey my 
parents, I virtuously and steadily kept my eyes upon the leg- 
less, armless Torso, wondering how any one could think it a beau- 
tiful work of art; and when my mother, true to her words, re- 
turning in five minutes with an expectant look on her face, said, 
"Now, darling, what do you think of the great 'Torso'?" I re- 
plied sadly, "Well, mamma, it seems to me a little 'chumpy' ! " 
How often later in life I have heard my mother laugh immod- 
erately as she described her effort to instil her own love of those 
wonderful shoulders and that massive back into her recalcitrant 
small daughter; and when, years after, I myself, imbued as she 
was with a passion for Itafy and Italian art, used to wander 
through those same galleries, I could never go into that little 
room without the memory of the small girl of long ago, and 
her effort to think Michael Angelo's ''Torso" anything but 
"chiunpy." 

Christmas in Rome was made for us as much like our won- 
derful Christmases at home as was possible in a foreign hotel. 
It had always been our custom to go to our parents' room at 
the pleasant hour of 6 A. M., and generally my mother had 
induced my long-suffering father to be dressed in some q>ecial 
and marvdlous manner at that early hour when we "undid" 
the bulging, mysterious-looking stockings, and none of these 
ezdting rites were omitted because of our distance from our 
native land. I think, for that reason, at the end of the beautiful 
Christmas Day, 1869, the special joy in the hearts of the three 



Greea Fields and Foreign Faring 49 

little American chfldren was that they had actually forgotten 
that they were in Rome at all ! On January 2, ^'Teedie'' him- 
self writes to his beloved Aunt Annie (Mrs. Grade) on a piece 
of note-paper which characteristically has at the top a bird on 
a bough — that paper beiDg his choice for the writing-desks which 
had been g^ven to the three children on his birthday: ''Will you 
send the enclosed to Eidith Carow. In it I described our ascent 
of Vesuvius, and so I will describe Pompeii to you." In a rather 
cramped hand he enters then into an accurate descrq>tion of 
everything connected with Pompeii, gloating with scientific 
delist over the seventeen skeletons found in the Street of the 
Tombs, but falling for one moment into a lighter vein, he tells 
of two little Italian boys whom my father had engaged to come 
and sing for us the same evening at Sorrento, and whose faces 
were so dirty that my father and his friend Mr. Stevens washed 
them with ''Kissengin Water." That extravagance seems to 
have been spedaUy entertaining to the mind of the young letter- 
writer. 

During the year abroad there were lovely times when we 
were not obliged to think of sculpture or painting— weeks in 
the great Swiss mountains when, in q>ite of frequent attacks 
of his old enemy, my father writes that ''Teedie" walked many 
miles and showed the pluck and perseverance which were so 
strikingly part of his character. In another letter he is described, 
while suffering from a peculiarly severe attack of asthma, as 
being propped up all night in a big chair in the sitting-room, 
while his devoted mother told him stories of ''when she was a 
little girl" at the old plantation at Roswell; and yet within two 
days of that very time he is following my father and brother on 
one of the longest walks they took in the mountains. Allthrou^ 
the letters of that period one realizes the developing character 
of the suffering Uttle boy. My mother writes in a letter to her 
sister: ''Teedie and Ellie have walked to-day thirteen miles, 
and are very proud of their performance. Indeed Teedie has 
been further several times." 

And so the year of exile had its joyous memories, but in spite 



50 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

of them never were there hi^pier children than those who ar- 
rived home in America in the spring of 1870. 

Earlier in our lives my father, always thinking of the problem 
of the fragile health of his two older children, conceived the idea 
of tuining the third room of the second stoiy at 28 East 20th 
Street into an out-of-doors piazza, a kind of open-air gymnasium, 
with eveiy imaginable swing and bar and seesaw, and my mother 
has often told me how he called the boy to him one day — ^Theo- 
dore was now about eleven years of age — and said: '^Theodore, 
you have the mind but you have not the body, and without the 
help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You 
must make your body. It is hard drudgery to make one's body, 
but I know you will do it." The little boy looked up, throwing 
back his head in a characteristic fashion; then with a flash of 
those white teeth which later in life became so well known that 
when he was police commissioner the story ran that any recreant 
policeman would faint if he suddenly came face to face with a 
set of fake teeth in a shop-window— he said, '^Ftt tnake my 
body." 

That was his first important promise to himself and the deli- 
cate little boy began his work; and for many years one of my 
most vivid recollections is seeing him between horizontal bars, 
widening his chest by regular, monotonous motion — drudgery 
indeed— but a drudgery which eventuated in his being not only 
the apostle but the exponent of the strenuous life. 

What fun we had on that piazza ! The first Theodore Roose- 
velt, like his son, was far ahead of his times, and fresh air was 
his hobby, and he knew that the children who will cry if they are 
made to take duU walks on dreary dty streets, will romp with 
dangerous delight ungovemessed and unmaided in an outdoor 
gymnasimn. I use the word '^dangerous'' advisedly, for one 
day my lovely and delicate mother had an unforgetable shock 
on that same piazza. She hi^pened to look out of the window 
opening on to the piazza and saw two boys — one of whom, need- 
less to say, was Theodore — carefuUy balancing the seesaw from 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 51 

the high rail which protected the children from the possibility 
of falling into the back yard, two stories below. Having wearied 
of the usual play, the aforesaid two boys thought they would 
add a tinge of excitement to the merriment by balancing the 
seesaw in such a manner as to have one boy always in the thrill* 
ing position of hanging on the farther side of the top rail, with 
the possibility (unless the equilibrium were kept to perfection) 
of seesaw, boys, and all descending unexpectedly into the back 
yard. 

One may well imagine the horror of the mother as she saw 
her adventurous offspring crawling out beyond the projection 
of the railing, and only great self-control enabled her to reach 
the wooden board held lightly by the fingers of an equally crim- 
inal cousin, and by an agonized clutch make it impossible for 
the seesaw to slide down with its two foolhardy riders. 

Needless to say, no such feat was ever performed again, but 
the piazza became the happy meeting-ground of all the boys 
and girls of the neighborhood, and there not only Theodore 
Roosevelt but many of his friends and family put in a stock 
of sturdy health which was to do them good service in later years. 
At the same time the children of that house were leading the 
normal lives of other little children, except for the individual 
industry of the more delicate one, who put his hours of neces- 
sary quiet into voracious reading of history, and study of natural 
history. 

Again the suinmers were the special delight of our lives, and 
the following several simuners we spent on the Hudson River, 
at or near Riverdale, where warm friendships were formed with 
the children of our parents' friends, Mr. and Mrs. William E. 
Dodge, Mr. and Mrs. Percy R. Pyne, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Harri- 
man, and Mr. Robert Colgate. 

Groups of joyous children invented and carried into effect 
every imaginable game, and, as ever, our father was the delight- 
ful collaborator in every scheme of pleasure. There began Theo- 
dore's more active collection of birds and animals. There he 



52 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

advertised for families of field-mice, and the influx of the ail-too* 
prolific Uttle animals was terrifying to the heart of so perfect 
a housekeeper as my mother. The honor produced by the dis- 
covery of several of the above-named families in the refrigerator 
was more than trying to the nerves of one less devoted to science. 
My sister Anna, the most unselfish of older sisters, was the chief 
sufferer always, as, in spite of her extreme youth — for she was 
only four years older than my brother — ^her unusual ability and 
maturity made her seem more like a second mother than a 
sister. On one special occasion Theodore, having advertised 
and offered the large smn of ten cents for every field-mouse and 
thirty-five cents for a family, left for a trip to the Berkshire 
hills, and my poor sister was inundated by hundreds of active 
and unattractive families of field-mice, while clamoring country 
people demanded their ten-cent pieces or the larger smn irrele- 
vantly offered by the absentee young naturalist. In the same 
unselfish manner my sister was the unwilling redpient of families 
of young squirrels, guinea-pigs, etc., and I can see her still bring- 
ing up one especially delicate family of squirrels on the bottle, 
and also begging a laundress not to forsake the household be- 
cause turtles were tied to her tubs ! 

Those smnmers on the Hudson River stand out as peculiarly 
happy days. As I have said before, we were allowed great free- 
dom, although never Ucense, in the summer-time, and situated 
as we then were, with a group of Uttle friends about us, the long 
sweet days passed like a joyous dream. 

Doctor Hilbome 3Vest, the husband of my mother's half- 
sister, stands prominently out as a figure in those childhood 
times. My mother writes of hun as follows: ''Dr. West has 
made himself greatly beloved by each child. He has made boats 
and sailed them with Ellie; has read poetry and acted plays 
with Conie; and has talked science and medicine and natural 
history with Teedie, who always craves knowledge." In spite 
of his craving for knowledge the boy, now nearly fourteen years 
old, had evidently, however, the normal love of noise and racket. 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 53 

as evinced by the following "spread-eagle" letter to his aunt, 
who, in her turn, had gone abroad that summer. 

Dear Auntie ^^^'^ ^*^' J^^^ 9th, 72. 

We had the most q>lendid fun on the fourth of July. At 
eight o'clock we commenced with a discharge of three packs 
of firecrackers, which awoke most of the people. But we had 
only begun now, and during the remainder of the day six boxes 
of torpedoes and thirty-six packs of firecrackers kept the house 
in an exceedingly lively condition. That evening it rained which 
made us postpone the fireworks until next evening, when they 
were had with great success, excepting the balloons, which were 
an awful swindle. We bojrs assisted by firing roman candles, 
flowerpots and bengolas. We eadi got his fair share of bums. 

G>nie had a slight attack of asthma last night but I took 
her riding this morning and we hope she is well now. 

We are permitted now to stay in the water as long as we 
please. The other day I came near being drowned, for I got 
caught under water and was almost strangled before I could 
get out. I study English, French, German and Latin now. 
Bamie spent the fourth at Barrytown where she had Tableaux, 
Dances, &c to her heart's content. Give my love to Uncles 
and Cousin Jimmie. Aunt Hattie &c. Tell Aunt Hattie I 
will never forget the beautiful jam and the splendid times we 
had at her cottage. j.^^ ^^ ^^^ ^ ^ 

Later in life, in thinking of this same uncle, whose subsequent 
career never squared with his natural ability, I have come to feel 
that sometimes people whom we call failures should not be so 
called, — ^for it is often their good fortune to leave upon the malle* 
able minds of the next generation an inspiration of which they 
themselves fall sadly short. Li the character of this same charm* 
ing unde there must have been some lack of fibre, for, brilliant 
as he was, he let his talents lie dormant. Yet, perhaps, of all 



54 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

those who influenced our early childhood, the effect upon us 
produced by his cultivation, his marvellous memory, his Uterary 
interests, and his genial good humor had more to do with the 
early stirring of intellectual desires in his little relatives than 
almost any other influence at that time. The veiy fact that 
he was not achieving a thousand worth-while things, as was 
my father, the very fact that he was not busied with the prac- 
tical care and thought for us, as were my mother and aunt — 
brought about between us that delightful relationship when the 
older person leads rather than drives the younger into the paths 
of literature and learning. To have ''Uncle Hill" read Shake- 
speare to us under the trees, ai^d then suggest that we ''dress 
up" and act the parts, to have "Unde Hill " teach us parts of 
the famous plays of all the ages and the equally famous poems, 
was a delight rather than a task; and he interspersed his Shake- 
speare with the most remarkable, and, to our childish minds, 
brilliant doggerel, sometimes ^f his own making, that could 
possibly be imagined — so that Hamlet's soliloquy one day 
seemed quite as palatable as "Villikins and His Dinah," or 
"Horum, Chorum, Sumpti Vorum," the next. To show the re- 
lationship between the charming ph3rsician of Philadelphia (the 
home of my unde and aunt was in that dty) and the young 
philosopher of New York, I am tempted to insert a letter from 
the latter to the former written in 1873 from Paris on our second 
trip abroad. 

"From Theodore the Philosopher to Hilbome, Elder of the 
Church of Philaddphia. Dated from Paris, a dty of Gaul, 
in the i6th day of the nth month of the 4th year of the reign 
of Ulysses. [I imagine that General Grant was then President.] 
Truly, O Hilbome ! this is the first time in many weeks that I 
have been able to write you concerning our affairs. I have just 
come from the dty of Bonn in the land of the Teuton, where I 
have been communing with our fellow labourer James of Roose- 
vdt, sumamed The Doctor [our first cousin, young James West 
Roosevelt], whom I left in good health. In crossing the Sea 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 55 

of Atlantis I suffered much of a malady called sickness of the 
sea, but am now in good health, as are also all our family. I 
would that you should speak to the sage Leidy concerning the 
price of his great manuscript, which I am desirous of getting. 
Give my regards to Susan of West, whom I hope this letter will 
find in health. I have procured many birds of kinds new to 
me here, and have preserved them. This is all I have to say 
for the time being, so will close this short epistle.''* 



That summer of 1872 was very enchanting, although over* 
shadowed by the thought of another '^ terrible trip to Europe," 
for after much thought my father and mother had decided that 
the benefits of a winter on the Nile, and a summer studsdng 
German in Dresden, would outweigh the possible disadvantage 
of breaking into the regular school studies of the three children 
of the 2odi Street nursery. Therefore the whole family set 
sail again in the autumn of 1872. 

After a deUghtful time with the uncles and aunts who had 
settled in England, and many gay excursions to Hampton Court 
and Bushey Park, and other places of interest, we went by way 
of Paris and Brindisi to Alexandria, and after some weeks in 
Cairo set sail on a dahabeah for three months on the Nile. In 
a letter from my brother Elliott to my aunt he q)eaks of my 
father's purchase of a boat With characteristic disregard of 
the historic interest of the Nile he says: '^Teedie and I won't 
mind the Nile very much, now that we have a boat to row in, 
perhaps it won't be so bad after all what with rowing, boxing, 
and Christmas and playing, in between lessons and the ruins." 
Reaching Egypt, the same young lover of boxing and boats 
writes of meeting much-beloved cousins, and again the char- 
acters of ''EUie" and ^'Teedie" are markedly brought out in the 
childish letter, for he says, ''We had such a cosey tea. Frank 
and I poured tea and cut up chicken, while Teedie and Jimmie 

* Tliis In a boyish hand which is beginning to show the character oi the 
young author. 



56 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

[the young cousin referred to in 'Teedie's' letter to Doctor We$t] 
talked about natural history." 

The experience of a winter on the Nile was a very wonderful 
one for the little American children, and ''Ellie's" antiqpations 
were more than carried out Before we actually set sail I write 
in my journal of our wonderful trip to the p3n:amids and our 
impressions, childish ones of course, of the marvellous bazaars; 
and then we finally leave Cairo and start on the journey up the 
ancient river. I have alwajrs been so glad that our trip was 
before the days of the railway up to Kamak, for nothing could 
have been more Oriental and unlike modem Uf e than the slow 
progress of our dahabeah, the Abac Erdan. When there was 
wind we tacked and slowly sailed, for the boat was old and bulky, 
but when there was no wind the long line of sailors would get 
out on the bank of the river and, tying themselves to the rope 
attached to the bow, would track slowly along, bending their 
bronzed backs with the effort, and singing curious crooning songs. 

In a letter dated December 27 I write to my aunt: ''I will 
tell you about my presents. Amongst others I got a pair of 
pretty vases, and Teedie says the little birds they have on them 
are an entirely new species. Teedie and Father go out shooting 
every day, and so far have been very lucky. Teedie is always 
talking about it whenever he comes in the room, — in fact when 
he does come in the room you always hear the words 'bird' and 
'skin.' // certainly is great fun far kim.^* In connection with 
these same shooting-trips my father writes: ''Teedie took his 
gun and shot an ibis and one or two other specimens this morn- 
ing while the crew were taking breakfast. Imagine seeing not 
only flocks of these birds, regarded as so rare by us in days gone 
by as to be selected as a subject for our game of 'twenty ques- 
tions,' but also of storks, hawks, owls, pelicans, and, above all, 
doves innumerable. I presented Teedie with a breech-loader 
at Christmas, and he was perfectly delisted. It was entirely 
tmezpected to him, although he had been shooting with it as 
mine. He is a most enthusiastic sportsman and has infused 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 57 

some of his spirit into me. Yesterday I walked through the 
bogs with him at the risk of sinking lK>pelessly and helplessly, 
for hours, and carried the dragoman's gun, which is a muzzle- 
loader, with which I only shot sevend birds quietly resting upon 
distant limbs and falltn trees; but I felt I must keep up with Tee- 
die.'' 

The boy of fourteen, with his indomitable energy, was already 
leading his equally indomitable fother into different fields of 
actioxL He never rested from his studies in natural history. 
When not walking through quivering bogs or actuaDy shooting 
bird and beast, he, surrounded by the brown-faced and curious 
sailors, would seat himself on the deck of the dahabeah and skin 
and stuff the products of his qx>rt I well remember the ex- 
citement, and, be it confessed, anxiety and fear inq>ired in the 
hearts of the four youi^ college men Who, on another dahabeah^ 
accompanied us on the Nile, when the ardent young qx>rtsman^' 
mounted on an uncontrollable donkqr, would ride unexpectedly 
into their midst, his gun dung across his shoulders in such & 
way as to render its proximity distinctty dangerous as he bumped 
absent-mindedly against them. When not actually huntii^ 
he was willing to take part in ezpferation of the marvellous old 
ruins. 

In a letter to "Edie'' I say: ''The other day we arrived at 
Edfoo, and we all went to see the temple together. While we 
were there Teedie, Ellie, lesi (one of our sailors), and I started 
to esplore. We went into a little dark room and climbed in a 
hole which was in the middle of the wall. The boys had candles. 
It was dark, crawling along the passage doubled up. At last 
we came to a deep hole, into which Teedie dropped, and we found 
out it was a munmiy pit. It didn't go very far in, but it all 
seemed very exciting to us to be exploring mummy pits. Some- 
times we sail head foremost and sometimes the current turns 
us all the way around — and I wish you could hear the cries of 
the sailors when anything happens." 

They were busy days, for our wise parents insbted upon 



58 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

regularity of a certain kind, and my older sister, only just 
eighteen, gave us lessons in both Frendi and English in the eariy 
morning before we went on the wonderful excursions to the great 
temples, or before '^Teedie'' was allowed to escape for his shoot- 
ing expeditions. I do not think the three months' absence from 
school was any detriment, and I am very grateful for the stimu- 
lating interest which that trip on the Nile gave to my brothers 
and me. I can still see in retrospect, as if it were yesterday, the 
great temple of Kamak as we visited it by moon-light; the 
majestic colossi at Medinet Haboo; and the more beautiful 
and delicate ruins of Philse. Often my fother would read 
Egyptian history to us or esplain the kind of architecture which 
we were seeing; but always interq)ersed with more serious in- 
struction were merry walks and games and wonderful picnic 
excursions, so that the winter on the Nile comes back to me as 
one of romantic interest mixed with the usual fun and cheerful 
intercourse of our ordinary family life. The four young men 
who had chartered the dahabeah Rachel were Messrs. Nathaniel 
Thayer and Frank Merriam of Boston, Augustus Jay of New 
York, and Harry Godey of Philade^hia, and these four friends, 
with the addition of other acquaintances whom we frequently 
met, made for my sister and my parents a delightful circle, 
into which we little ones were welcomed in a most gracious 
way. 

In spite of the fact of the channs of the Nile and the fun 
we frequently had, I write on February i, from Thebes, to my 
little playmate ''Edie,'' with rather melancholy reminiscence 
of a more congenial past: ''My own darling Edie,'' I say, ''don't 
you remember what fun we used to have out in the country, 
and don't you remember the day we got Pony Grant up in the 
Chauncey's summer house and couldn't get him down again, 
and how we alwajrs were losing Teedie's India rubber shoes? 
I remember it so perfectly, and what fun it was !" I evidently 
fed that such adventures were preferable to those in which we 
were indulging in far-away Egypt, although I conscientiously 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 59 

describe the ear on one of the colossi at Medinet Haboo as being 
four feet high, and the temple, I state, with great accuracy, has 
twelve columns at the north and ten on either side I I seem, 
however, to be glad to come back from that expedition to Medinet 
Haboo, for I state that I wish she could see our dahabeah, which 
is a regular little home. I don't approve — ^in this same letter — 
of the dandng-girls, which my parents allowed me to see one 
evening. With early Victorian criticism I state that "there 
is not a particle of grace in their motions, for they only wriggle 
their bodies like a snake," and that I really felt they were ''very 
unattractive" — thus proving that the little girl of eleven in* 
1873 ^^ more or less prim in her tastes. I delight, however, 
in a poem which I copy for "Edie," the first phrase of which 
has rung in my ears for many a long day. 

''Alas ! must I say it, fare-farewell to thee. 
Mysterious Egypt^ great land of the flea. 
And thy Thebaic temples, Luxor and Kamac, 
Where the natives change slowly from yellow to black. 
Shall I ne'er see thy plain, so fraught with renown, 
Where the shadoofs go up and the shadoofs go down. 
Which two stalwart natives bend over and sing, 
While their loins are concealed by a simple shoe string." 

This verse, in spite of the reference to the lack of clothes of the 
stalwart natives, evidently did not shock my sensibilities as 
much as the motions of the dandng-girls. Farther on in the 
letter I describe the New Year's Eve party, and how Mr. Mer- 
riam sang a song which I (Conie) liked very much, and which 
was called "She's Naughty But So Nice." "Teedie," however, 
did not care for that song, but preferred one called "Aunt 
Dinah," because one verse ran: "My love she am a giraffe, a 
two-humped camamile." [Music had apparently only charms 
to soothe him when suggestive of his beloved animal studies.] 
From Thebes also my brother writes to his aunt one of the most 
interesting letters of his boyhood: 



6o My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Near Kom Obos, Jan. 36U1, 1873. 

DEA& Aunt Anmie: 

My right hand having recovered from the imaginary attack 
from which it did not suffer, I proceed to thank you for your 
kind present, which very much delighted me. We are now on 
the Nile and have been on that great and mysterious river for 
over a month. I think I have never enjoyed myseU so much 
as in this month. There has always been something to do, for 
we could always fall back upon shooting when everything else 
failed us. And then we had those splendid and grand old ruins 
* to see, and one of them will stock you with thoughts for a month. 
The temple that I enjoyed most was Kamak. We saw it by 
moonlight I never was impressed by anything so much. To 
wander among those great columns under the same moon that 
had looked down on them for thousands of years was awe- 
inspiring; it gave rise to thoughts of the ineffable, the unut- 
terable; thoughts which you cannot express, which cannot be 
uttered, whidi cannot be answered until after The Great 
Sleep. 

{Here the little philosqpher breaks off and continues in less 
serious mood on February 9.] 

I have had great enjoyment from the shooting here, as I 
have procured between one and two hundred skins. I expect 
to procure some more in Syria. Inform Emlen of this. As 
you are probably aware, Father presented me on Christmas 
with a double-barrelled breech loading shot gun, which I never 
move on shore without, excq>ting on Sundays. The largest 
bird I have yet killed is a Crane which I shot as it rose from a 
lagoon near Thebes. 

The sporting is injurious to my trousers. . . • 

Now that I am on the subject of dress I may as well men- 
tion that the dress of the inhabitants up to ten years of age is 
nothing. After that they put on a shirt descended from some 
remote ancestor, and never take it off till the day of their 
death. 



j mr At- _ If aai _ _ T_ n 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 6i 

Mother is recovering from an attack of indigestion, but the 
rest are all well and send love to you and our f riends, in which 
I join sincerely, and remain, 

Your Most Affectionate Nephew, 

T. Roosevelt, Jr. 

The adoration of his little sister for the erudite ^'Teedie'' is 
shown in every letter, especially in the letters to their mutual 
little friend '^Edie/' On January 25 this admiration is summed 
up in a postscript which says: ''Teedie is out shooting now. 
He is quite professionist [no higher praise could apparently be 
given than this remarkable word] in shooting, skinning and 
stuffing, and he is so satisfied." This expression seems to sum 
up the absolute sense of well-being during that wonderful winter 
of the delicate boy, who, in spite of his delicacy, always achieved 
his heart's desire. 

In the efforts of his little sister to be a worthy companion, 
I find in my diary, written that same winter of the Nile, one 
abortive struggle on my own part to become a naturalist. On 
the page at the end of my journal I write in large letters: 

NATURAL mSTORY 

"quail 

"Ad. near Alexandria, Egypt, Nbvember 27th, 1872. Length 
5 — Expanse 13.0 Wings s Tail 1.3 — B31 5. Tarsus 1.2 
Middle Toe i.i Hind Toe .3." 

Under these mystic signs is a more elaborate and painstak- 
ing description of the above bird. I can see my brother now 
giving me a serious lecture on the subject, and trying to inspire 
a mind at that time securely closed to all such interests — to 
open at least a crack of its reluctant door, for '^Teedie^' felt 
that to walk with blind eyes in a world of such fluttering excite- 
ment as was made for him by the birds of the air showed an 



62 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

innate dq>ravity which he wished with all his soul to cure in 
his beloved little sister. At the end of my description of the 
quail I fall by the wayside, and only once again make an ex- 
cursion into the natural history of the great land of Egypt; only 
once more do I struggle with the description of a bird called 
this time by the curious name of "23czac/' (Could this be '^ Zig- 
zag/' or was it simply my childish mind that zigzagged in its 
painful efforts to follow the impossible trail of my elder brother ?) 
In my account of this, to say the least, unusual bird I remark: 
'^ Tarsus not finished." Whether / have not finished the tarsus, 
or whether the bird itself had an arrested development of some 
kind, I do not explain; and on the blank page opposite this final 
effort in scientific adventure I finish, as I b^gan, by the words 
** Natural History/' and underneath them, to explain my own 
unsuccessful efforts, I write: ''My Brother, Theodore Roose- 
velt, Esq.'' Whether I had decided that all natural history 
was summed up in that magic name, or whether from that time 
on I was determined to leave all natural history to my brother, 
Theodore Roosevelt, Esq., I do not know; but the fact remains 
that]]from that day to this far distant one I have never again 
dipped into the mystery of mandibles and tarsi.- 

And so the sunny, happy days on the great river passed 
away. A merry eighteenth-birthday party in January for my 
sister Anna took the form of a moonlight ride to the great temple 
of Kamak, and, althou£^ we younger ones, naturally tired fre- 
quently of the effort to understand history and hieroglyphics, 
and turned with joy even in the shadow of the grand columns 
of Abydos to the game of "Buzz," still I can say with truth 
that the easily moulded and receptive minds of the three little 
chfldren responded to the atmosphere of the great river with 
its mighty past, and all throu£^ the after-years the interest 
aroused in those eaxfy days stimulated their craving for knowl- 
edge about the land of the Pharaohs. 

On our way down the river an incident occurred which, in 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 63 

a sense, was also memorable. At Rhoda on our return from the 
tombs of Beni Hasan we found that a. dahabeah had drawn up 
near ours, on which were the old sage Ralph Waldo Emerson 
and his daughter. My father, who never lost a chance of bring- 
ing mto the lives of his children some worth-while memory, took 
us all to see the old poet, and I often think with pleasure of the 
lovely smile, somewhat vacant, it is true, but very gentle, with 
which he received the little children of his fellow countryman. 
It was at this time that the story was told in connection with 
Mr. Emerson that some sentimental person said: ''How won- 
derful to think of Emerson looking at the Sphinx! What a 
message the Sphinx must have had for Emerson.'' Whereupon 
an irreverent wit replied: "The only message the Sphinx could 
possibly have had for Emerson must have been 'You're an- 
other.' " I can quite understand now, remembering the mystic, 
dreamy face of the old philosopher, how this witticism came 
about. 

And now the Nile tap was over and we were back again in 
Cairo, and planning for the further interest of a trip through the 
Holy Land. Mr. Thayer and Mr. Jay, two of the young friends 
who had accompanied us on the I*nie, decided to join our party, 
and after a short stay in Cairo we again left for Alexandria and 
thence sailed for Jaffa. In my diary I write at the Convent of 
Ramleh between Jaffa and Jerusalem, where we spent our first 
night: ''In Jaffa we chose our horses, which was very exdting, 
and started on our long ride. After three hours of delightful rid- 
ing through a great many green fields, we reached this convent 
and found thqr had no room for ladies, because they were not 
allowed to go into one part of the building as it was against the 
rules, but at last Father got the old monks to allow us to come 
into another part of the convent for just one nig^t" 

"Father," like his namesake, ahnoat always got what he 
wanted. 

From that time on. one adventure after another followed. 



64 My Brother Theodore Roosevdt 

I write of many nice gaUops, and of my hoiae lying down in the 
middle of streams; and, incidentally with less interest, of the 
Mount of OKves and the Church of the Hdy Sqmlchrel Anr 
tonio Sapienza proved to be an admirable dragpman, and always 
the practical part of the tenting cavalcade started eariy in the 
morning, and therefore as the rest of us rode over the hills in 
the later afternoon we would see arranged cosily in some beau- 
tiful valley the white tents, with the curiing smoke from the 
kitchen-tent already rising with the promise of a deli^^tful 
diimer. 

Over Jordan we went, and what a very great disq)pointment 
Jordan was to our childish minds, which had always pictured 
a broad river and great waves parting for the Ark of the 
Covenant to pass. This Jordan was a little stream hardly more 
impressive than the brook at our old home at Madison, and we 
could not quite accustom ourselves to the disappointment. But 
Jerusalem with its narrow streets and gates, its old churches, the 
high Mount of Olives, and the little town of Bethlehem not far 
away, and, even more interesting from the stanc^int of beauty, 
the vision of the Convent of Mar Saba on the high hiU not far 
from Hebron, and beyond all else the blue q>arkling waters of 
the Dead Sea, all remain in my memory as a wonderful pano- 
rama of romance and detig^t. 

Arab sheiks visited us frequently in the evening and brought 
their fdlowers to dance for us, and wherever my father went 
he accumulated friends of all kinds and colors, and we, his chil- 
dren, shared in the marvellous atmosphere he created. I re- 
member, in connection with the Dead Sea, that "Teedie'' and 
Mr. Jay decided that they could sink in it, althous^ the guides 
had warned them that the salt was so buoyant that it was im- 
possible for any living thing to sink in the waters (the Dead Sea 
was about the most alive sea that I personally have ever seen), 
and so the two adventurous ones undertook to dive, and tried 
to remain under water. ''Teedie" fortunately relinquished 
the effort almost immediately, but Mr. Jay, who in a spirit of 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 65 

bravado struggled to remain at the bottom, suffered the ill ef- 
fects from crusted salt in qres and ears for many hours after 
leaving the water. 

For about three weeks we rode through the Holy Land, and 
my memory of many flowers remains as one of the charms of 
that trip. Later, led in the paths of botany by a beloved 
friend, I often longed to go back to that land of flowers; but 
then to my childish ^es they meant nothing but beauty and 
deUg^t. 

After returning to Jerusalem and Jaffa we took ship again 
and landed this time at Beyrout, and started on another camp- 
ing-trip to Damascus, throu^ perhaps the most beautiful 
scenery which we had yet enjoyed. During that trip also we 
had various adventures. I describe in my diary how my father, 
at one of our stopping-places, brought to our tents some beau- 
tiful young Arab girls, how ihey gave us oranges and nuts, and 
how cordially they bagged us, when a great storm came up and 
our tents were blown away, to come for shelter to their quaint 
Uttle houses. 

Even to the minds of the children of eleven and fourteen 
years of age, the great Temple of Baalbek proved a lure of 
beauty, and the diary sagely remarks that ''It is quite as beau- 
tiful as Kamak, although in an entirely different way, as Baal- 
bek has delicate columns, and Kamak great, massive columns.'' 
The beauty, however, is not a matter of such interest as the 
mysterious little subterranean passages, and I tell how "Teedie'' 
helped me to dimb the walls and little tower, and to crawl 
through these same unexplored dark places. 

The ride into Damascus itself remains still an expedition of 
glamour, for we reached the vicinity of the dty by a high cUff, 
and the dty burst upon us with great suddenness, its minarets 
stretching their delicate, arrow-like spires to the sky in so Orien- 
tal a fashion that even the practical hearts of the little American 
children responded with a thrill of exdtement. Again, after an 
interesting stay in Damascus, we made our way back to Bey- 



66 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

rout. White waiting for the steamer there my brother Elliott 
was taken ill, and writes in a homesick fashion to the beloved 
amit to whom we confided all our joys and woes. Poor little 
boy ! He says pathetically: ''Oh, Auntie, you don't know how 
I long for a finishing-up of this ever-lasting traveling, when we 
can once more sit down to breakfast, dinner and lunch in our own 
house. Since I have been sick and only allowed rice and chicken, 
— and very little of them — ^I have longed for one of our rice pud- 
dings, and a pot of that strawberry jam, and one of Mary's 
sponge cakes, and I have thought of when I would go to your 
rooms for dinner and what jolly chops and potatoes and dessert 
I would get there, and when I would come to breakfast we would 
have buckwheat cakes. Perhaps I am a little homesick." I am 
not so sure but what many an intelligent traveller, could his 
or her heart be closely examined, would find written upon it 
'* lovely potatoes, chops and hot buckwheat cakes." 

But all the same, in spite of ^'EUie's" rhapsody, off we started 
on another steamer, and my father writes on March 28, 1873: 

Steamer off Rhodes. 
Teedie is in great spirits, as the sailors have caught for him 
numerous specimens, which he stuffs on deck, to the edification 
of a large audience. 

I write during the same transit, after stopping at Athens, 
that ''It is a very lovely town, and that I should have liked to 
stay there longer, but that was not to be." I also decided that 
althou£^ the ruins were beautiful, I did not like them as much 
as either Kamak or Baalbek. Having dutifully made these 
architectural criticisms, I turn with gusto to the fact that Tom 
and Fannie Lawrence, "Teedie," "EUie," and I have such splen* 
did games of tag on the different steamers, and that I know my 
aunt would have enjoyed seeing us. The tag was ''con amore,'* 
while the interest in the temples was, I fear, somewhat induced. 
Our comprehending mother and father, however, Blways allowed 



\ 



Green Fields and Foreign Faring 67 

us joyous moments between educational efforts. In a letter 
from Constantinople written by ''EUie" on April 7, he says: 
''We have had Tom and Frank Lawrence here to dinner, and 
we had a splendid game of 'muggins' and tried to play eucre 
(I don't know that this is ri^tly spelled) with five, but did not 
suceede, Teedie did make such mistakes. [Not such an expert 
in cards, you see, as in tarsi and mandibles !] But we were in 
such spirits that it made no difference, and we did nothing but 
shout at the top of our voices the battle cry of freedom; and the 
pla3ang of a game of slapjack helped us get off our steam with 
hard slaps, but even then there was enou£^ (steam) left in Tee- 
die and Tom to have a candle fight and grease thdr dothes, 
and poor Frank's and mine, who were doing nothing at all!" 
As one can see by this description, the learned and rather deli- 
cate "Teedie" was only a normal, merry boy after all. "EUie" 
describes also the wonderful rides in Constantinople, and many 
other joys planned by our indulgent parents. From that same 
dty, called because of its many steeples The City of Minarets, 
"Teedie" writes to his little friend Edith: 

I think I have enjoyed myself moie*this winter than I ever 
did before. Much to add to my enjoyment Father gave me a 
gun at Christmas, which rendered me happy and the rest of 
the family miserable. 

I killed several hundred birds with it, and then went and 
lost it! I think I enjoyed the time in Egypt most, and after 
that I had the most fun while camping out in S3nJa. 

While camping out we were on horseback for several hours 
of each day, and as I like riding ever so much, and as the Syrian 
horses are very good, we had a splendid time. While riding I 
bothered the family somewhat by carrying the gun over my 
shoulder, and on the journey to the Jordan, when I was on the 
most ^irited horse I ever rode, I bothered the horse too, as was 
evidenced by his running away several times when the gun struck 
him too hard. Our tent life had a good many adventures in it. 



68 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Once it rained veiy hard and the rain went into our open trunks. 
Another time our tents were ahnost blown away in a rough wind, 
and once I hunted a couple of jackals for two or three miles as 
fast as the horse could go. 

Youis truly, t. Roosevelt, Jr. 

This little missive sums up the }oy of ''Teedie's" winter in 
Egypt and Syria, and so it seems a fitting moment to turn to 
other interests and occupations, leaving the mysterious land of 
the pyramids and that sacred land of -mountains and flowers 
behind us in a glow of child memories, which as year followed 
year became brighter rather than dimmer. 



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<|1 U i^ « 



m 

DRESDEN LITERARY AMERICAN CLUB 

MOTTO "W. A* N. A.'' 

IT was a sad change to the three young American children 
to settle in Dresden in two German famifies, after the care- 
free and stimulating experiences of Egypt and the Holy 
Land. Ou r wise pare nts^ ho^ggeyerj^ realized that a whole year 
of irregu Tanty was a serious mistake in that formative period 
of our lives, and thqr also wished to leave no stone unturned 
to give us every educational advantage during our twelve 
months' absence from home and countiy. It was decided, . \ ; 
therefore, that the two boys should be placed in the family of ^ vi 

Doctor and Mrs. Minckwitz, while I, a veiy lone and homesick T o^ -> 
small girl, was put with some kind but far too elderly people, y^\ ( ^ ow^ 
Professor and Mrs. Wackemagel. JUbSs lasL_arr^g)ement was 
supposed to be advantageous, so that the brothers and sister 
should not speak too much English together. The kind old 
professor and his wife and the dauj^ters, who seemed to the 
little girl of eleven years on the verge of the grave (althou^ 
only about forty years of age), did all that was in thdr power to 
lighten the agonized longing in the child's heart for her mother 
and sister, but to no avail, for I write to my mother, who had 
gone to Carlsbad for a cure: ''I was perfectly miserable and 
very much unstrung when Aunt Lucy wrote to you that no one 
could mention your name or I would instantly begin to cry. 
Oh I Mother darling, sometimes I fed that I cannot stand it any 
longer but I am going to try to follow a motto which Father 
wrote to me, 'Try to have the best time you can.' I should be 
very sorry to disappoint Father but sometimes I fed as if I 

69 



^ 



¥ 



70 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

could not stand it any longer. We will talk it over when you 
come. Your own little Conie." 

Poor little girl! I was trying to be noble; for my father , who 
had been obliged to return to America for business reasons, had 
impressed me with the fact that to spend part of the summer in 
a German family and thus learn the language was an unusual 
opportunity, and one that must be seized upon. My spirit 
was willing, but my ^esh was very, very weak, and the age of 
the kind people with whom I had been placed, the strange, dread- 
ful, black bread, the meat that was given only as a great treat 
after it had been boiled for soup — everything, in fact, conduced 
to a feeling of great distance from the lovely land of buckwheat 
cakes and rare steak, not to mention the sq>aration from the 
beloved brothers whom I was allowed to see only at rare inter- 
vals during the week. The consequence was that very soon my 
mother came back to Dresden in answer to the pathos of my 
letters, for I found it impossible to follow that motto, so char- 
acteristic of my father, ^'Try to have the best time you can." 
I began to sicken very much as the Swiss mountsuneers are said 
to lose their spirits and appetites when separated from their 
beloved mountains; so my mother persuaded the kind Minck- 
witz family to take me under thdr roof, as well as my brothers, 
and from that time forth there was no more melancholy, no 
bursting into poetic dirges constantly celebrating the misery of 
a young American in a German family. 

From the time that I was allowed to be part of the Minck- 
witz family everjrthing seemed to be fraught with interest and 
many pleasures as well as with systematic good hard work. In 
these days, when the word '' German" has almost a sinister sound 
in the ears of an American, I should like to speak with affec- 
tionate respect of thai German family in which the three little 
American children passed several happy months. The mem- 
bers of (he family were typically Teutonic in many ways: the 
Herr Hofsrath was the kindliest of creatures, and his rubicund, 
smiling wife paid him the most loving court; the three daughters 



The Dresden Literary American Club 71 

— gay, well-educatedy and veiy temperamental young women — 
threw themselves into the work of teaching us with a hearty 
good will, which met with real response from us, as that kind of 
effort invariably does. Our two cousins^ the same little cousins 
who had shared the happy summer memories of Madison, New 
Jersey, when we were much younger, were also in Dresden with 
their mother, Mrs. Stuart Elliott, the ''Aunt Lucy" referred to 
frequently in our letters. Aunt Lucy was bravely facing the 
results of the sad Civil War, and her only chance of giving her 
children a proper education was to take them to a foreign coun* 
try where the possibility of good schools, combined with iner- 
pensive living, suited her depleted income. Her little apartmefit 
on Sunday idftemoons was always open to us all, and there we 
five little cousins formed the celebrated ''D. L. A. C' (Dresden 
Literary American Club I) 

On June 2 I wrote to my friend ''Edie": ''We five children 
have gotten up a dub and meet every Sunday at Aunt Lucy's, 
and read the poetry and stories that we have written during 
the week. When the book is all done, we will sell the book either 
to mother or Aunt Annie and divide the money; (although on 
erudition bent, still of commercial mind !) / am going to write 
poetry all the time. My first poem was called 'A Sunny Day 
in June.' Next time I am going to give 'The Lament of an Amer- 
ican in a German Family.' It is an entirely different style I 
assure you." The "different style" is so very poor that I re- 
frain from quoting that illustrious poem. 

The work for the D. L. A. C. proved to be a very entertain- 
ing pastime, and great competition ensued. A motto was chosen 
by "Johnnie" and "Ellie," who were the wits of the society. 
The motto was spoken of with bated breath and mysteriously 
inscribed W. A. N. A. underneath the mystic signs of D. L. A. C. 
For many a long year no one but those in our strictest confidence 
were allowed to know that "W. A. N. A." stood for "We Are 
No Asses." This, perhaps somewhat untruthful statement, 
was objected to originally by '^Teedie," who firmly maintained 



72 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 



99 



that the mere making of such a motto showed that ^^ Johmiie 
and '^EUie" were certainly excq>tions that proved diat rule. 
''Teedie" himself^ struggling as usual with terrible attacks of 
asthma that peipetually undennined his health and strength, 
¥^as all the same, between the attacks, the ringleader in fun 
and gaiety and eveiy imaginable humorous adventure. He was 
a slender, overgrown boy at the time, and wore his hair long in 
true German student fashion, and adopted a would-be phi- 
losopher type of look, effectively enhanced by trousers that 
were outgrown, and coat sleeves so short that th^ gave him a 
''Smike"-like appearance. His contributions to the immortal 
literary dub were either serious and veiy accurate from a 
natural-historical standpoint, or else th^ showed, as compara- 
tively few of his later writings have shown, the delightful qual- 
ity of humor which, through his whole busy life, lightened for 
him every load and criticism. I cannot resist giving in full the 
fascinating little story called '^Mrs. Field Mouse's Dixmer 
Party," in which the personified animals played social parts, 
in the portrayal of which my brother divulged (my readers must 
remember he was only fourteen) a knowledge of '^society" life, 
its acrid jealousies and hypocrisies, of which he never again 
seemed to be consdous. 

MRS. FIELD MOUSE'S DINNER PARTY 
By Theodos£ Roosevelt— Aged Foueteek 

^My Dear," said Mrs. M. to Mr. M. one day as they were sitting 
on an elegant acorn soEa, just after breakfast, "My Dear, I think 
that we really must give a dinner party." "A What, my love?" 
ezdaimed Mr. M. in a surprised tone. "A Dinner Party"; returned 
Mrs. M. firmly, "you have no objections I suppose?" 

"Of course not, of course not," said Mr. M. hastily, for there was 
an ominous gleam in his wife's eye. "But— but why have it yet 
for a while, my love?" "Why indeed I A pretty question I After 
that odious Mrs. Frog's great tea party the other evening! But 
that is just it, you never have any proper regard for your station in 
life, and on me involves all the duty of keeping up appearances, and 



« 
I 



The Dresden Literary American Club 73 

after all Mi5 is the gratitude I get for it 1*^ And Mrs. M. covered her 
eyes and feU into hysterics of 50 flea power* Of course, Mr. M. had 
to promise to have it whenever she liked. 

''Then the day after tomorrow would not be too early, I suppose?" 
^'My Dear/' remonstrated the unfortunate Mr. M., but Mrs. M. 
did not heed him and continued: ''You could get the cheese and bread 
from Squeaky Nibble & Co. with great ease, and the firm of Brown 
House and Wood Rats, with whom you have business relations, you 
told me, could get the other necessaries." 

''But in such a short time/' commenced Mr. M. but was sharply 
cut off by the lady; ''Just like you, Mr. M. ! Always raising objec- 
tions! and when I am doing all I can to help youl" Symptoms of 
hysterics and Mr. M. entirely convinced, the lady continues: " WeD, 
then we will have it the day after tomorrow* By the way, I hear 
that Mr. Qiipmunck has got in a new supply of nuts, and you mig^t 
as wen go over after breakfast and get them, before they are bought 
by someone else." 

"I have a business engagement with Sir Butterfly in an hour," 
began Mr. M. but stopped, meekly got his hat and went off at a glance 
from Mrs. M.'s eye. 

When he was gone, the lady called down her eldest daughter, the 
charming Miss M. and commenced to arrange for the party* 

"We will use the birch bark plates,"-— conmienced Mrs. M» 

^'And the chestnut 'tea set,' " put in her daughter. 

"Mth the maple leaf vases, of course," continued Mrs. M. 

"And the ed bone spoons and forks," added Miss M. 

"And the dog tooth knives," said the lady. 

"And the slate table doth," replied her daughter* 

"Where shall we have the ball anyhow," said Mrs. M. 

"Why, Mr. Blind Mole has let his large subterranean apartments 
and that would be the best place," said Miss M. 

"Sir Lizard's place, 'Shady Nook,' which we bought the other 
day, is far better / thhik," said Mrs. M. "But I don't," returned 
her daughter. "Miss M. be still," said her mother sternly, and Miss 
M. was stilL So it was settled that the ball was to be held at 'Shady 
Nook.' 

"As for the invitations, Tommy Cricket will carry them around," 
said Mrs. M. "But who shall we have?" asked her dau^ter. After 
some discussion, the guests were determined on. Among them were 
all the Family of Mice and Rats, Sir Lizard, Mr. Chipmunck, Sir 
Shrew, Mrs. Shrew, Mrs. Bullfrog, Miss Katydid, Sir Grasshopper, 



74 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Lord Beetle, Mr. Ant, Sir Butterfly, Miss Dragonfly, Mr. Bee, Mr. 
Wasp, Mr. Hornet, Madame Maybug, Miss Lady Bird, and a num- 
ber of others. Messrs. Gloworm and Firefly agreed to provide lamps 
as the party was to be had at night. Mr. M., by a great deal of exer- 
tion, got the provisions together in time, and Miss M. did the same 
with the furniture, while Mrs. M. superintended generally, and was 
a great bother. 

Water Bug & Co. conveyed everjrthing to Shady Nook, and so 
at the appointed time everything was ready, and the whole family, 
in their best ball dresses, waited for the visitors. 



The fisrt visitor to arrive was Lady Maybug. '^ Stupid old thing; 
always first," muttered Mrs. M., and then aloud, ''How charming 
it is to see you so prompt, Mrs. Maybug; I can always rely on yowr 
being here in time.'' 

''Yes Ma'am, oh law! but it is so hot— di lawl and the carriage, 
oh law! almost broke down; ohlaw! I did really think I never should 
get here — oh law 1" and Mrs. Maybug threw herself on the so&; but 
the sofa unfortimatdy had one weak leg, and as Mrs. Maybug was 
no lij^t weight, over she went. While Mrs. M. (inwardly swearing 
if ever a mouse swore) hastened to her assistance, and in the midst 
of the confusion caused by this accident. Tommy Cricket (who had 
been hired for waiter and dressed in red trousers accordingly) threw 
open the door and announced in a shrill pipe, "Nibble Squeak & Co., 
Mum," then hastily correcting himself, as he received a dagger like 
glance from Mrs. M., "Mr. Nibble and Mr. Squeak, Ma'am," and 
precipitately retreated through the door. Meanwhile the unfortunate 
Messrs. Nibble and Squeak, who while trying to look easy in their 
new dothes, had luckily not heard the introduction, were doing their 
best to bow gracefully to Miss Maybug and Miss Mouse, the respec- 
tive mamas of these young ladies having pushed them rapidly forward 
as each of the ladies was trying to get up a match between the rich 
Mr. Squeak and her daughter, idthough Miss M. preferred Mr. Wood- 
mouse and Miss Maybug, Mr. Hornet. Li the next few minutes the 
company came pouring in (among them Mr. Woodmouse, accom- 
panying Miss Katydid, at which sight Miss M. turned green with 
envy), and after a very short period the party was called in to dinner, 
for the cook had boiled the hickory nuts too long and they had to be 
sent up immediately or they would be spoiled. Mrs. M. displayed 
great generalship in the arrangement of the people, Mr. Squeak tatdng 
in Miss M., Mr. Hornet, Miss Maybug, and Mr. Woodmouse, Miss 



The Dresden Literary American Club 75 

Eatydid. But now Mr. M. had invited one person too many for the 
plates, and so Mr. M. had to do without one. At first this was not 
noticed, as each person was seeing who could get the most to eat, 
with the exception of those who were love-making, but after a while, 
Sir Lizard, (a great swell and a very high liver) turned round and 
remarked, ** Ee-aw, I say, Mr. M., why don't you take something more 
to eat?" ''Mr. M. is not at all hungry toni^t, are you my dear?" 
put in Mrs. M. smiling at Sir lizard, and frowning at Mr. M. ''Not 
at all, not at all," replied the latter hastily. Sir Lizard seemed dis- 
posed to continue the subject, but Mr. Moth, (a very scientific 
gentleman) made a diversion by saying, "Have you seen my work 
on' Various Antenae'? In it I demonstrated dearly the superiority of 
feathered to knobbed Antenae and" — "Excuse me. Sir," interrupted 
Sir Butterfly, " but you surely don't mean to say — " 

"Excuse me, if you please," replied Mr. Moth sharply, "but I 
do mean it, and if you read my work, you will perceive that the rays 
of feather-like particles on the trunk of the Antenae deriving from 
the center in straight or curved lines generally" — at this moment 
Mr. Moth luckily choked himself and seizing the lucky instant, Mrs. 
M. rang for the desert. 

There was a sort of struggling noise in the pantry, but that was 
the only answer. A second ring, no answer. A third ring; and Mrs. 
M. rose in majestic wrath, and in dashed the unlucky Tonmiy Cricket 
with the cheese, but alas, while half way in the room, the beautiful 
new red trousers came down, and Tonmiy and cheese rolled straight 
into Miss Dragon Fly who fainted without any unnecessary delay, 
while the noise of Tomm3r's howls made the room ring. There was 
great confusion immediately, and while Tommy was being kicked 
out of the room, and while Lord Beetle was emptying a bottle of rare 
rosap over Miss Dragon Fly, in mistake for water, Mrs. M. gave a 
glance at Mr. M., which made him quake in his shoes, and said in a 
low voice, "Provoking thing 1 now you see the good of no suspenders" 
— "But my dear, you told me not to"— began Mr. M., but was in- 
terrupted by Mrs. M. "Don't speak to me, you — " but here Miss 
Katydid's Kttle sister struck in on a sharp squeak. "Katy kissed 
Mr. Woodmousel" "Katy didn't," returned her brother. "Katy 
did," "Katy didn't," "Katydid," "Katy didn't." All eyes were 
now turned on the crimsoning Miss Katydid, but she was unex- 
pectedly saved by the lamps suddenly commencing to bum blue ! 

"There, Mr. M. 1 Now you see what you have done !" said the 
lady of the house, sternly. 



76 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

^My dear, I told you they could not get enough oil if you had 
the party so early. It was your own fault/' said Mr. M. worked up 
to desperation. 

Mrs. M. gave him a glance that would have annihilated three 
millstones of moderate size, firom its sharpness, and would have fol- 
lowed the example of Miss Dragon Fly, but was anticipated by Ma- 
dame Maybugy who, as three of the lamps above her went out, fell 
into blue convulsions on the sofa. As the whole room was now sub- 
siding into darkness, the company broke up and went off with some 
abruptness and confusion, and when they were gone, Mrs. M. turned 
(by the lij^t of one bad lamp) an eagle eye on Mr. M. and said — f but 
we will now draw a curtain over the harrowing scene that ensued and 
say, 

"Good Bye." 



''Teedie" not only indulged in the free play of fancy such 
as the above, but wrote with extraordinary system and regular- 
ity for a boy of fourteen to his mother and father, and perhaps 
these letters, written in the far-away Dresden atmosphere, show 
more conclusively than almost any others the character, the 
awakening mind, the forceful mentality of the yoimg and deli- 
cate boy. On May 29, in a letter to his mother, a very parental 
letter about his homesick little sister who had not yet been taken 
from the elderly family in which she was so imbappy, he drops 
into a tighter vein and says: "I have overheard a good deal of 
Minckwitz conversation which they did not think I understood; 
Father was considered Wery pretty' {sehr hiibsch) and his Ger- 
man 'exceedingly beautiful,' neither of which statements I quite 
agree with." And a week or two later, writing to his father, 
he describes, after referring casually to a bad attack of asthma, 
an afternoon of tag and climbing trees, supper out in the open 
air, and long walks through the green fields dotted with the blue 
cornflowers apd brilliant red poppies. True to his individual 
tastes, he says: ''When I am not studying my lessons or out 
walking I spend all my time in translating natural history, wres- 
tling with Richard, a young cousin of the Minckwitz' whom I 
can throw as often as he throws me, and I also sometimes cook, 



The Dresden Literary American Club 77 

although my efforts in the culinary art are really confined to 
grinding coffee, beating ^ggs or making hash, and such light 
labors." Later he writes again: ''The boxing gloves are a source 
of great amusement; you ought to have seen us after our 'rounds' 
yesterday." The foregoing "rounds" were described even more 
graphically by "EUie" in a letter to our unde, Mr. Graciei as 
follows: "Father, you know, sent us a pair of boxing gloves 
apiece and Teedie, Johnnie, and I have had jolly fun with them. 
Last night in a round of one minute and a half with Teedie, he 
got a bloody nose and I got a bloody mouth, and in a round with 
Johnnie, I got a bloody mouth again and he a pair of puiple 
eyes. Then Johnnie gave Teedie another bloody nose. [The 
boys by this time seemed to have multiplied their features in- 
definitely with more purple eyes !] We do en joy them so I Box- 
ing is one of Teedie's and my favorite amusements; it is such 
a novelty to be made to see stars when it is not night." No won- 
der that later "Ellie" contributed what I called in one of my 
later letters a "tragical" article called "Bloody Hand" for the 
D. L. A. C, perhaps engendered by the memory of all those 
bloody mouths and noses I 

"Teedie" himself, in writing to his Aunt Annie, describes 
himself as a "bully boy with a black eye," and in the same letter, 
which seems to be in answer to one in which this devoted aunt 
had described an unusual specimen to interest him, he says: 

''Dear darling little Nancy: I have received your letter con- 
ceming the wonderful animal and although the fact of your 
having described it as having horns and being carnivorous has 
occasioned me grave doubts as to your veracity, yet I think in 
course of time a meeting may be called by the Roosevelt Mu- 
seum and the matter taken into consideration, although this 
will not happen until after we have reached America. The 
Minckwitz family are all splendid but very superstitious. My 
scientific pursuits cause the family a good deal of consternation. 

"My arsenic was confiscated and my mice thrown (with the 
tongs) out of the window. In cases like this I would approach 



78 My Brother Theodore Roosevdt 

a refractory female^ mouse in hand, comer her, and bang the 
mouse very near her face until she was thoroughly convinced 
of the wickedness of her actions. Here is a view of such a scene. 







«^^ ^^^^^?u^ 



» • 




I am getting along very well with German and studying really 
hard. Your loving T. R., Secretary and Librarian of Roosevelt 
Museum. (Shall I soon hail you as a brother, I mean sister mem* 
ber of the Museum?) " 

Evidently the carnivorous animal with horns was a stepping* 
stone to membership in the exclusive Roosevelt Museum I 

The Dresden memories indude many happy excursions, 
happy in spite of the fact that they were sometimes taken be- 
cause of poor ^^Teedie's" severe attacks of asthma. On June 
39th he writes his father: '^I have a conglomerate of good news 
and bad news to report to you; the former far outweighs the 
latter, however. I am at present suffering from a slight attack 
of asthma. However, it is only a small attack and except for 
the fact that I cannot speak without blowing like an abridged 



The Dresden Literary American Club 79 

hippopotamus^ it does not inconvenience me very much. We are 
now studying hard and everything is systematized. Excuse 
my writing, the asthma has made my hand tremble awfully." 
The asthma of which he makes so light became unbearable, and 
the next letter, on June 30 from the Bastd in Saxon Switzer- 
land, says: ^'You will doubtless be surprised at the heading of 
this letter, but as the asthma did not get any better, I concluded 
to come out here. Elliott and Corinne and Fr&ulein Anna and 
Fr&ulein Emma came with me for the excursion. We started 
in the train and then got out at a place some distance below 
these rocks where we children took horses and came up here, 
the two ladies following on foot. The scenery on the way and 
all about here was exceedingly bold and beautifuL All the moun- 
tains, if they deserve the name of mountains, have scarcely any 
gradual decline. They descend abruptly and precipitously to 
the plain. In fact, the sides of the mountains in most parts are 
bare while the tops are covered with pine forests with here and 
there jagged conical peaks rising from the foliage. There are 
no kmg ranges, simply a number of sharp high hills rising from 
a green fertile plain through which the river Elbe ?Fanders. You 
can judge from this that the scenery is really magnificent. I 
have been walking in the forests coUecdbg butterflies. I could 
not but be struck with the difference between the animal life 
of these forests and the pahn groves of Egypt, (auld lang syne 
now). Although this is in one of the wildest parts of Saxony 
and South Germany, yet I do not think the proportion is as much 
as one here for twenty there or around Jericho, and the differ- 
ence in proportion of q>ecies is even greater, — still the woods 
are by no means totally devoid of inhabitants. Most of these 
I had become acquainted with in Syria, and a few in Egypt. 
The only birds I had not seen before were a jay and a bullfinch.'* 

The above letter shows how true the boy was to his marked 
tastes and his dose observation of nature and natural historyl 

After his return from the Bastd my brother's asthma was 
somewhat less troublesome, and, to show the vital quality which 



So My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 



could never be downed^ I quote a letter from '^Ellie" to his aunt: 
''Suddenly an idea has got hold of Teedie that we did not know 
enough Geiman for the time that we have been here, so he has 
asked Miss Anna to give lum laiger lessons and of course I could 
not be left behind so we are working harder than ever in our 
lives." How unusual the evidence of leadership is in this 
yoimg boy of not yet fifteen, who already inspires his pleasure- 
loving little brother to work ^'harder than ever before in our 
lives." Many memories crowd back upon me as I think of those 
days in the kind German family* The two sons, Herr Oswald 
and Herr Ulrich, would occasionally return from Ldpsig where 
they were students, and always brought with them an aroma 
of duels and thrilling excitement. Ulrich, in college, went by 
the nickname of ''Der Rothe Herzog," The Red Duke, the ap- 
pellation being applied to him on account of his scarlet hair, his 
equally rubicund face, and a red gash down the left side of his 
face from the sword of an antagonist. Oswald had a very ex- 
traordinary expression due to the fact that the tip end of his nose 
had been nearly severed from his face in one of these same, ap- 
parently, every-day affairs, and the physician who had restored 
the injured feature to its proper enviroxmxent had made the mis- 
take of sewing it a little on the bias, which gave this kind and 
gentle yoimg man a very sinister expression. In spite of their 
practice in the art of dueUing and a general ferocity of ap« 
pearance, they were sentimental to the last extent, and many 
a time when I have been asked by Herr Oswald and Herr Ulrich 
to read aloud to them from the dear old books ''Gold Elsie" or 
"Old Mam'selle!s Secret," they would fall upon the sofa beside 
me and dissolve in tears over any melancholy or romantic situa-* 
tion. Thdr sensibilities and sentimentalities were perfectly in- 
comprehensible to the somewhat matter-of-fact and distinctly 
courageous trio of young Americans, and while we could not 
understand the spirit which made them willing, quite casually, 
to cut off each other's noses, we could even less understand their 
lachrymose response to sentimental tales and their genuine terror 



The Dresden Literary American Club 8i 

should a thunder-stonn occur. '^EUie'' describes in another 
letter how all the family^ in the middle of the night, because of 
a sudden thunder-stonn^ crawled in between their mattresses 
and woke the irrelevant and uninterested small Americans from 
their slumbers to incite them to the same attitude of mind and 
body. His descrq>tion of '* Teedie '' under these circumstances is 
very amusing, for he says: ^^ Teedie woke up only for one minute, 
turned over and said, 'Oh — ^it's raining and my hedgehog will 
be all spoiled/ " He was speaking of a hedgehog that he had 
skinned the day before and hung out of his window, but even 
his hedgehog did not keep him awake and, much to the suiprise 
of the frightened Minckwitz family, he fell back into a heavy 
sleep. 

In spite of the sentimentalities, in spite of the radal differ- 
ences of attitude about many things, the American children 
owe much to the literary atmosphere that surrounded the family 
Kfe of their kind Gennan friends. In those days in Dresden 
the most beautiful representations of Shakespeare were given 
in Gennan, and, as the hour for the theatre to bqpin was six 
o'clock in the evening, and the plays were finished by nine 
o'clock, many were the evenings when we enjoyed '' Midsummer 
Night's Dream," "Twelfth Night," "The Taming of the Shrew," 
and many more of Shakespeare's wonderful fanciful creations, 
given as they were with unusual sympathy and ability by the 
actors of the Gennan Theatre. 

Perhaps because of our literary studies and our ever-growing 
interest in our own efforts in the famous Dresden Literary Amer- 
ican Club, we decided that the volume which became so precious 
to us should, after all, have no commercial value, and in July I 
write to my aunt the news which I evidently fed will be a serious 
blow to her — ^that we have decided that we cannot sell the poems 
and stories gathered into that immortal volume I 

About the middle of the stunmer there was an epidemic of 
smallpox in Dresden and my mother hurriedly took us to the 
Engadine, and there, at Samaden, we Uved somewhat the life 



82 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

of our beloved Madison and Hudson River days. Our cousin 
John Elliott accompanied us, and the three boys and their ardent 
little follower, myself, spent endless happy hours in climbing 




^c^y/!^ 



.Jtifnt^ ^9i^li .9^ ^^yL 4^ 




^m^uifi^ 



>^^CfiM^^ -A ••^ -^-ifi^ 





FACSDOLS OP THBODORE SOOSBVELTS LEITBR 



the surrounding mountains, only occaabnally recalled by the 
lenient ^'Fr&uldn Anna'' to what were already almost forgotten 
Teutonic studies. Later we returned to Dr^en, and in spite 
of the longing in our patriotic young hearts to be once more in 
the land of the Stars and Stripes, I remember that we all parted 



The Dresden Literary American Club 83 

with keen regret from the kind family who had made their little 
American visitors so much at home. 

A couple of letters from Theodorei dated September 21 and 








D 





OF SBPTEICBSR 21. 1878. TO ms OLDSR SISTER] 

October 5, bring to a dose the experiences in Dresden, and show 
in a spedal way the boy's humor and the original inclination to 
the quaint drawings which have become familiar to the Amer- 
lean people through the book, lately published, called ^'Theo* 
dore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children." On Sq>tember 21, 



84 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

18739 he writes to his older sister: ''My dear darling Baxnie, — 
I wrote a letter on the receipt of yours, but Corinne lost it and 
so I write this. Health; good. Lessons; good. Play hours; 
bad. Appetite; good. Accounts; good. Clothes; greasy. 
Shoes; holey. Hair; more 'a-la-Mop' than ever. Nails; dirty, 
in consequence of having an ink bottle upset over them. li- 
brary; beautifuL Museum; so so. Club; splendid. Our 
journey home from Samaden was beautiful, except for the fact 
that we lost our keys but even this incident was not without 
its pleasing side. I reasoned philosophically on the subject; 
I said: 'Well, everything is for the best. For example, if I can- 
not use my tooth brush tonight, at least, I cannot forget it to- 
morrow morning. Ditto with comb and night shirt.' In these 
efforts of high art, I have taken particular care to imitate truth- 
fully the Chignons, bustles, grease-spots, bristles, and especially 
my own mop of hair. The other day I much horrified the female 
portion of the Minckwitz Tribe by bringing home a dead bat. 
I strongly suspect that th^ thought I intended to use it as some 
sorcerer's duum to injure a foe's constitution, mind and ap- 
petite. As I have no more news to write, I will dose with some 
illustrations on the Darwinian theory. Your brother— Teedie." 

The last letter, on October 5, was to his mother, and reads 
in part as follows: "Corinne has been sick but is now well, at 
least, she does not have the same striking resemblance to a half- 
starved raccoon as she did in the severe stages of the disease." 
After a humorous description of a German conversation be- 
tween several members of his aunt's family, he proceeds to "fur- 
ther illustrations of the Darwinian theory" and doses his letter 
by signing himself "Your affectionate son, Cranibus GirafEnus." 

Shortly before leaving Dresden I had my twelfth birthday 
and the Minckwitz dan made every effort to make it a gay fes- 
tival, but perhaps the gift which I loved best was a letter re- 
cdved that very morning from my bdoved father; and in dos- 
ing this brief account of those days spent in Germany, because 
of his wise decision to broaden our young horizons by new 




m 



/H 



/k 



^ 



yv-^ 
f^' 













FACSIMILE OF "SOMB ILLUSllLATIONS ON THE DARWINIAN THEORY.* 
OQNTAINSD IN THE LETTER OF SEPTEMBER 31, 1878 

8S 



9- 






yXifd^ 




^li/W%t*-***iV 



^i^ 













H>t^ 



TACSOOLE, ON THIS AND OPPOSITE PAGE, OF *' FURTHER ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
THE DARWINIAN THEORY," IN HIS LETTER OF OCTOBER 6 

86 



^^^^^•^^ 



^£si 











^ 




^ 






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JffWi 




JfK^j^^ 



«7 



88 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

thoughts and new studies, I wish once more, as I have done sev- 
eral times in these pages, to quote from his words to the little 
girl in whom he was trying to instil his own beautiful attitude 
toward life: ''Remember that almost eveiy one will be kind to 
you and will love you if you are only willing to receive their love 
and are unselfish yourself. Unselfishness, you know, is the vir- 
tue that I put above all otheis, and while it increases so much 
the enjoyment of those about you, it adds infinitely more to 
your own pleasure. Your future, in fact, depends very much 
upon the cultivation of unselfishness, and I know that my dar- 
ling little girl wishes to practise this quality, but I do wish to 
impress upon you its importance. As each year passes by, we 
ought to look back to see what we have accomplished, and also 
look forward to the future to make up for any defidendes show- 
ing thus a determination to do better, not wasting time in vain 
regrets/' In many ways these words of my father, written when 
we were so young and so malleable, and impressed upon us by 
his ever-encouraging example, became one of the great factors 
in making my brother into the type of man who wfll always 
be remembered for that unselfishness instilled into him by his 
father, and for the determination to do better each day of his 
life without vain regret for what was already beyond recall. 

Oyster Bay— The Happy Land of Woods and Waters 

After our return to America the winter of 1874 was passed 
at our new home at 6 West 57th Street My brother was still 
considered too deUcate to send to a boarding-school, and various 
tutors were engaged for his education, in which my brother El- 
liott and I shared. Friendships of various kinds were begun 
and augmented, especially the friendship with the little girl 
Edith Cazow, our babyhood friend, and another little girl, 
Frances Theodora Smith, now Mrs. James Russell Parsons, to 
whose friendship and comprehension my brother always turned 
with affectionate appreciation. Inspired by the Dresden Lit- 



The Dresden Literary American Club 89 

entry American Club, the female members of our little coterie 
formed a circle known by the name of P. O. R. £., to which the 
''boys" were admitted on rare occasions. The P. O. R. £. had 
also literary ambitions, and they proved a fit sequel to the erudi- 
tionary D. L. A. C, which originated in the German family I 
Mr. J. Coleman Drayton, Mr. Charles B. Ale3cander, and my 
father were the only honorary menibers of the P. O. R. £. 

The summer of 1874 proved to be the forerunner of the hap- 
piest summers of our lives, as my father decided to join the 
colony which had been started by his family at Oyster Bay, 
Long Island, and we rented a country place which, much to 
the amusement of our friends, we named ''Tranquillity." Any- 
thing less tranquil than that hi^py home at Oyster Bay could 
hardly be imagined. Endless young couans and friends of both 
sexes and of every kind of varied interest always filled the simple 
rooms and shared the delightful and unconventional life which 
we led in that enchanted spot. Again I cannot say too much 
of the way in which our parents allowed us liberty without 
Hcense. During those years— when Theodore was fifteen, sa- 
teen, and seventeen-^every special delight seems connected 
with Oyster Bay. We took long rides on horseback through 
the lanes then so seemingly remote, so far from the thought of 
the broad highways which now are traversed by thousands of 
motors, but were then the scenes of picnics and every imaginable 
spree. Our parents encouraged all mental and physical activity 
and having, as I say , a large drde of young cousins settled around 
us, we were never at a loss for companionshq). One of our great- 
est delights was to take the small rowboats with which we were 
provided and row away for long days of happy leisure to what 
then seemed a somewhat distant spot on the other side of the 
bay, called Yellow Banks, where we would have our picnic lunch 
and dimb Cooper's Blu£F, and read aloud or indulge in poetry 
contests and games which afforded us infinite amusement. One 
of our favorite games was caUed Crambo. We each wrote a 
question and each wrote a word, then all the words were put into 



90 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

one hat and all the questions into another, and after each child 
had drawn a question and a word, he or she was obliged to 
answer the question and bring in the word in a verse. Amongst 
my papers I find some of the old poetic efforts of those happy 
summer days. One is dated Plum Point, Oyster Bay, 1875. I 
remember the day as if it were yesterday; Theodore, who loved 
to row in the hottest sun, over the roughest water, in the smallest 
boat, had chosen his friend Edith as a companion; my cousin 
West Roosevelt, the " Jimmie" of earlier childhood, whose love 
of science and natural history was one of the joys that Theo- 
dore found in his companionship, took as his companion my 
friend Fannie Smith, now Mrs. Parsons, and my brother Elliott 
and I made up the happy six. Lying on the soft sand of the 
Point after a jolly luncheon, we played our favorite game, and 
Theodore drew the question: ''Why does West enjoy such a 
dirty picnic?" The word which he drew was "golosh," and 
written on the other side of the paper in his own boyish hand- 
writing is his attempt to assimilate the query and the word I 

"Because it is his nature to, 
He finds kis idyl in the dirt. 
And if you do not sympathize 
But find yours in some saucy flirt. 
Why that is your affair you know, 
It*s like the choosing a (?) golosh. 
You doat upon a pretty face, 
He takes to carrots and hogwash." 

Perhaps this sample of early verse may have led him later 
into other paths than poetiy I 

We did not always indulge in anything as light and humorous 
as the above example of poetic fervor. I have in my possession 
all kinds of competitive essays — on William Wordsworth, Wash- 
ington Irving, and Plutarch's "Lives," written by various mem- 
bers of the happy group of young people at Ojrster Bay; but 
when not indulging in these literary efforts "Teedie" was al- 




The Dresden Literary American Club 91 

ways studying his beloved natural history. At that time in hi^ 
life he became more and more deteimined to take up this study 
as an actual career. My father had many serious talks with 

^^ccuae ^^ <^ '^ ^G.C!Zic i^ 



o 




FACSDULE OF VERSES BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT FOR A FAVORnS GAME 

him on the subject. He impressed the boy with the feeling that, 
if he should thus decide upon a career which of necessity could 
not be lucrative, it would mean the sacrifice of many of the plea- 
sures of which our parents' environment had enabled us to par- 



92 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

take. My father, however, also told the earnest young natural- 
ist that he would provide a small income for him, enabling|htm 
to live simply, should he decide to give himself up to scientific 
research work as the object of his life. During all those summers 
at Oyster Bay and the winters in New York City, before going 
to college, ^^Teedie" worked along the line of hb chief interest 
»with a veiy definite determination to devote himself peima- 
nently to that type of study. Our parents realized fully the 
unusual quality of their son, they recognized the strength and 
power of his character, the focussed and reasoning superiority 
of his mentality, but I do not think they fully realized the ex- 
traordinary quality of leadershq> whidi, hitherto somewhat 
hampered by his ill health, was later to prove so great a factor, 
not only in the circle of his immediate family and friends but in 
the broader field of the whole country. He was growing stronger 
day by day; already he had learned from those fine lumber- 
men, '^WIQ. Dow'^ and ''Bill Sewall," who were his guides on 
long hunting tnps in the Maine woods, how to endure hardship 
and how to use his rifle as an adqpt and his paddle as an e3^>ert. 

His body, answering to the insistence of his character, was 
growing stronger day by day, and was soon to be an instrument 
of iron to use in the future years. 

Mr. Arthur Cutler was engaged by my parents to be at 
Oyster Bay during these summeis to superintend the studies 
of the two boys, and with his able assistance my brother was 
well prepared for Harvard Collie, which he entered in Sep- 
tember, 1876. It seems almost incredible that the puny, deli- 
cate child, so suffering even three years before, could have started 
his college life the peer, from a physical standpoint, of any of his 
classmates. A light-weight boxer, a swift runner, and in every 
way fitted to take his place, physically as well as mentaUy, in 
the arena of college life, he entered Harvard College. 

In looking back over our early childhood there stands out 
clearly before me, as the most important asset of the atmosphere 
of our home, the joy of life, combined with an earnest effort for 



onto 
ather 
nsh 
dasn 
lidd 
ile,a 

odK 

ilnie 



dntd 

cgU 
sat 
jet 

boy 
ill 



DO 



The Dresden Literary American Qub 93 

spiritual and intellectual benefit. As I write I can hear my 
father's voice calling us to early '' Morning Prayers" which it 
was his invariable custom to read just before breakfast. Even 
this religious service was entered into with the same joyous zest 
which my father had the power of putting into every act of his 
life, and he had imbued us with the feeling that it was aprivilege 
rather than a duty to be present, and that also the place of honor 
while we listened to the reading of the Bible was the seat on the 
sofa between him and the end of the sofa. When we were little 
children in the nursery, as he called to us to come to prayers, 
there would be a universal shout of ''I speak for you and the 
cubby-hole too," the '^ cubby-hole" being this much-desired 
seat; and as my brother grew to man's estate these happy and 
yet serious memories were so much a part of him that when the 
boy of eigihteen left Oyster Bay that September afternoon in 
1876, to take up the new life which the entrance into coU^e 
always means for a young man, he took with him as the heritage 
of his boyhood not only keen joy in the panorama of life which 
now unrolled before him but the sense of duty to be performed, 
of opportunity to be seized, of high resolve to be squared with 
practical and effective action, all of which had been part of the 
teaching of his father, the first Theodore Roosevelt 



IV 
COLLEGE CHUMS AND NEW-FOUND LEADERSHIP 

DURING the winter and summer of 1876, preceding that 
September when Theodore Roosevelt left his home for 
Harvard College, he had entered more fully into the 
social life of the boys and girls of his immediate acquaintance. 
As a veiy young boy, there was something of the recluse about 
him, although in his actual family (and that family included a 
number of cousins) he was always the ringleader. His delicate 
health and his almost abnormal literary and scientific tastes 
had isolated him somewhat from the hurly-burly of ordinary 
school life, and even ordinaiy vacation Ufe; but during the win- 
ter of 1876 he had enjoyed to the full a dandng-class which my 
mother had organized the winter before, and that dandng-class 
sowed the seeds of many friendships. The Livingston, Clark- 
son, Potter, and Rutherfurd boys, and amongst the girls my 
friends Edith Carow, Grace Potter, Fannie Smith, Annie Mur- 
ray, and myself, formed the nucleus in this dandng-class, and 
the informal "Germans'' (as they were called in those days) 
and all the merriment connected with happy skating-parties 
and spring picnics in Central Park cemented relationships which 
lasted faithfully through later days. My brother Elliott, more 
naturally a social leader, influenced the young naturalist to 
greater interest in his humankind, and when the spring merged 
into happy summer at Ojrster Bay, Theodore was already show- 
ing a keener pleasure in intercourse with young people of his 
own age. 

In a letter to "Edith" early in the summer, I write of an 
expedition which he took across the bay to visit another girl 
friend. He started at five o'clock in the morning and reached 

94 



Collie Chums 95 

the other shore at eight o'clock. Thinking it too early to pay 
a call, he lay down on a laige rock and went to sleep, waking up 
to find his boat had drifted far away. When he put on his spec- 
tacles he could see the boat at a distance, but, of course, did 
not wish to swim with his clothes on, and decided to remove 
them temporarily. Having secured the boat, he foigot that 
it might be wise to put on his clothes before sleeping again under 
the dock. To his perfect horror, waking suddenly about an 
hour later, the boat, clothes, and all had vanished. At the same 
moment he heard the footsteps of his fair inamorata on the 
wooden planks of the dock above his head. She had walked 
down with a friend to greet the admirer whom she expected at 
about nine o'clock. His description of his feelings as he lay shiv- 
ering, though not from cold, while above him they calmly dis- 
cussed his probable arrival and the fact that they thought they 
would wait there to greet him, can probably be imagined. The 
girls, after a period of long waiting, walked away into the woods, 
and the self-conscious young man proceeded to swim down a 
hidden creek where he thought the tide had taken his recalcitrant 
boat, and ^ere, sure enough, he found it. The sequel to this 
little stoiy throws much light on masculine human nature, for 
he conceived an aversion to the lady who so unconsciously had 
put him in this foolish position, and rowed defiantly back to 
Oyster Bay without paying the proposed visit I 

During that summer my father, who always gave his chil- 
dren such delightful suiprises, drilled us himself in a little play 
called ''To Oblige Benson," in which Theodore took the part 
of an irascible and absent-minded fanner, and our beloved cousin 
John Elliott the part of an impassioned lover, while my friend 
Fannie Smith and I were the heroines of the adventures. My 
father's efforts to make Theodore into a farmer and John into 
a lover were commendable though not eminently successful, 
but all that he did for us in those ways gave to his children a 
certain ease in writing and speaking which were to be of great 
value in later years. Fannie Smith, to show how Theodore 



96 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

still dominated the little circle from the stanci^iiit of intellect, 
writes that same July: ''I have no power to write sensibly to- 
day. If I were writing to Theodore I would have to say some- 
thing of this kind, 'I have enjoyed Plutarch's last essay on the 
philosophy of Diogenes excessively.' " In his early college days, 
however, he seems temporarily to put the ^'philosophy of Di- 
ogenes" aside, and to become a very normal, simple, pleasure- 
loving youth, who, however, always retained his earnest moral 
purpose and his realization that education was a tool for future 
experience, and, therefore, not to be n^ected. 

He writes on November 26, 1876: "I now belong to another 
whist dub, composed of Harry Minot, Dick Saltonstall and a 
few others. They are veiy quiet fellows but also veiy pleasant. 
Harry Minot was speaking to me the other day about our making 
a collecting tnp in the White Mountains together next summer. 
I think it would be good fun." The result of that collecting trip 
will be shown a little later in this chapter. On December 14 
he writes again: '^ Darling Pussie [his pet name for me]: I ought 
to have written you long ago but I am now having examina- 
tions all the time, and am so occupied in studying for them that 
I have very little time for myself, and you know how long it 
takes me to write a letter. My only exdtement latdy has been 
the dancing class which is very pleasant. I may as wdl describe 
a few of my chief friends." He then gives an account of his 
specially intimate companions, and speaks as follows of one 
whose name has become prominent in the annals of his coun- 
try's history as able finander, secretary of state, and colond 
in the American £]q)editiona]7 Force— Robert Bacon: "Bob 
Bacon is the handsomest man in the class and is as pleasant 
as he is handsome. He is only sixteen, but is very large." He 
continues to say that he would love to bring home a few of his 
friends at Christmas time, and condudes: "I should like a party 
very much if it is perjtcHy convenient." The party proved a 
delightful Christmas experience, and the New York girls and 
Boston boys fraternized to their hearts' content. On his return 



College Chums 97 

to Cambridge after these Christmas holidays he writes one of 
his amusingi characteristic little notes, interspersed with quaint 
drawings. "Darling Pussie: I delivered your two notes safely 
and had a veiy pleasant journey on in the cars. To drown my 
grief at parting from you all, I took refuge, not in the flowing 
bowl, but in the AUanHc Monthly and Harper^s Magazine — ^not 
to mention squab sandwiches. A journey in the cars always 
renders me sufficiently degraded to enjoy even the love stories 
in the latter magazine. I think that if I was forced to travel 
across the continent, towards the end of my journey, I should 
read dime novels with avidity. Good-bye darling. Your loving 
Tedo." 

The signature was followed by accurate representations of 
Harper's Magazine^ AUanHc MonMy^ and the squab sandwich, 
which he labels "my three consolations" 1 

A letter dated February 5, 1877, shows the Boston of those 
days in a veiy pleasant light. He begins: "Little Pussie: I 
have had a veiy pleasant time this week as, in fact, I have eveiy 
week. It was cram week for ' Conic Sections ' but, by using most 
of my days for study, I had two evenings, besides Saturday, 
free. On Wednesday evening, Harry Jackson gave a large sleigh- 
ing party; this was great fun for there were forty girls and fel- 
lows and two matrons in two huge sleighs. We sang songs for 
a great part of the time for we soon left Boston and were dragged 
by our eight horses rapidly through a great many of the pretty 
little towns which form the suburbs of Boston. One of the girls 
looked quite like Edith only not nearly as pretty as her lady- 
shq>. We came home from our sleigh ride about nine and then 
danced until after twelve. I led the German with Harry Jack- 
son's cousin. Miss Andrews. After the party. Bob Bacon, Ar- 
thur Hooper, myself and some others, came out in a small sleigh 
to Cambridge, making night hideous with our songs. On Satur- 
day I went with Minot Weld to an Assembly (a juvenile one I 
mean) at Brookline. This was a very swell affair, there being 
about sixty couples in the room. I enjoyed myself veiy much 



98 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 



... I came home today in time for my Sunday-school 
class; I am beginning to get very much interested in my scholars, 
especially in one who is a very orderly and bright little fellow 
— two qualities which I have not usually found combined. 
Thank Father for his dear letter. Your loving brother, Ted." 

The above letter shows how normal a life the young man 
was leading, how dmply and naturally he was responding to 
the friendly hoi^itality of hb new Boston friends. Boston had 
welcomed him originally for the sake of his older sister, who, 
during two charming summer visits to Bar Harbor, Maine, had 
made many New England friends. The Sunday-school which 
he mentions, and to which he gave himself very faithfully, proved 
a big test of character, for it was a great temptation to go with 
the other feUows on Saturday afternoons to Chestnut HiU or 
BrooUine or Milton, where open house was kept by the Lees, 
Saltonstalls, Whitneys, and other friends, and it was very hard 
either to refuse their invitation from the beginning or to leave 
the merry parties early Sunday morning and return to Cam- 
bridge to be at his post to teach the unndy little people of the 
slums of Cambridge. So deq>ly, however, had the first Theodore 
Roosevelt impressed his son with the necessity of giving himself 
and the attainments with which his superior advantages had 
endowed him to those less fortunate than he, that all through 
the first three years of his college life he only failed to appear 
at his Sunday-school class twice, and then he arranged to have 
his class taken by a friend. Truly, when he put his hand to the 
plough he never turned back. 

On March 27 of his first year at college he writes again in 
his usual sweet way to hb younger sister: ''Little Pet Pussie: 
95 per cent wiU help my average. I want to pet you again aw- 
fully ! You cunning, pretty, little, foolish Puss. My easy chair 
would just hold myself and Pussie." Again on April 15 : ''Little 
Pussie: Having given Motherling an account of my doings up 
to yesterday, I have reserved the more frivolous part for little 
pet Pussie. Yesterday, in the afternoon, Minot Weld drove 



Collie Chums 99 

me over to his house and at six o'clock we sallied forth in festive 
attire to a mating ^German' at Dorchester which broke up 
before eleven o'clock. This was quite a swell affair, there being 
about 100 couples. • • • I spent last night with the Welds and 
walked back over here to Forest Hill with Minot in the after- 
noon, collecting a dozen snakes and salamanders on the way.'' 
Still the natural historian, even although on pleasure bent; so 
snakes and salamanders hold their own in spite of ^' swell mat- 
in^ Germans." From Forest HiU that same Sunday he writes 
a more serious letter to his father: '^DarUng Father: I am spend- 
ing my Easter vacation with the Minots, who, with their usual 
kindness, asked me to do so. I did not go home for I knew I 
should never be able to study there. I have been working pretty 
steadily, having finished during the last five days, the first book 
of Horace, the sixth book of Homer, and the 'Apology of Soc- 
rates.' In the afternoon, some of the boys usually come out 
to see me and we spend that time in the open air, and on Satur- 
day evening I went to a party, but during the rest of the time 
I have been workings pretty faithfully. I spent today, Sunday, 
with the Welds and went to their church where, although it was 
a Unitarian Church, I heard a realty remarkably good sermon 
about 'The Attributes of a Christian.' I have enjoyed all your 
letters very much and my conscience reproaches me greatly 
for not writing you before, but as you may imagine, I have had 
to study pretty hard to make up for lost time, and a letter with 
me is very serious work. Your loving son, T. R. Jr." 

On June 3, as his dass day approaches, and after a visit to 
Cambridge on the part of my father, who had given me and my 
sister and friends Edith Carow and Maud Elliott the treat of 
accompanying him, Theodore writes: ''Sweet Pussie: I en- 
joyed your visit so much and so did all of my friends. I am so 
glad you like my room, and next year I hope to have it even 
prettier when you all come on again." His first class day was 
not specially notable, but he finished his freshman year standing 
high in his dass and having made a number of good friends. 



lOO My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

although at that period I do not think that hei«ras in any marked 
degree a leader amongst the young men of the class. He was 
regarded more as an all-round good sport, a fellow of high ideals 
from which he never swerved, and one at whom his companions, 
who, except Harry Minot, had not very strong literary afiUia- 
tions, were always more or less surprised because of the way in 
which their otherwise perfectly normal comrade sank into com- 
plete oblivion when the magic pages of a book were unrolled 
before him. 

That summer, shortly after dass day, he and Harry Minot 
took their expedition to the Adirondacks with the following re- 
sults, namely: a catalogue written in the mountains of ''The 
Summer Birds of the Adirondacks in Franklin County, N. Y., 
by Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and H. D. Minot." This catalogue 
was sent to me by Mr. John D. Sherman, Jr., of Mt. Vernon, 
N. Y, He tells me that it was originally published in 1877 ^^^ 
favorably mentioned soon after publication in the Nutiail Bui- 
leUn. Mr. Shennan thinks that the paper was "privately'^ 
published, and it was printed by Samuel E. Casino, of Salem, 
who, when a mere boy, started in the natural-history-book busi- 
ness. The catalogue shows such careful observation and such 
perseverance in the accumulation of data by the two young col- 
lege boys that I think the first page worthy of reproduction as 
one of the early evidences of the careful study Theodore Roose- 
velt had given to the subject which always remained through- 
out his life one of the nearest to his heart. 

EGe love of poetry in those days became a very living thing, 
and the summer following his first college year was one in which 
the young people of Oyster Bay turned with glad interest to the 
riches not only of nature but of literature as well. I find among 
my papers, painstakingly copied in red ink in my brother's hand- 
writing, Swinburne's poem ^'The Forsaken Garden." He had 
sent it to me, copying it from memory when on a trip to the 
Maine woods. Later, on his return, we would row by moon- 
I light to '^ Cooper's Bluff '* (near which spot he was eventually 



Oy TBE' ABZBONBAOKS IK FBANKLIK OOnHTTy" K. T. 



3t THIOOQBB BOOeSVXLT, Jlk, AXD B. IK Mmof 



The IMlowlng catalogue (wHtten In the moaataliis) to btaed vpon cb* 
MrraUoDt made In Angoat, 1874, Aagnatv 1876, and Jane SM to JvSj •fth» 
1877, aapedaUy aboQt tbe Saint Begto Lakea, Mr. Minot hating baan with 
na, onlj dnrlng the laat week of June, feach of na haa need hto Inltlato 
la naUng a atatedient which the other haa not rerUled. 

T&noDOBB BooaiviLT, Jr. 

The geaerd fbatnrea of the Adlrondaeka, 1^ thoae (wrta whlcSi we have 
axamlned,' are the many lakea, the abaenoe of «ioiiiila<»-brooka, the Inzn- 
rlant fbreat-growth (the taller decldnooa treea often reaching the height, 
of a hundred feet, and the White Plnea eren that of a hundred and thirty), 
the aaady aoll, the cool, Inrlgoratlng air, and both a decided wlldneaa and 
lerelneaa of eoontiy aa compared with the dlTcrilty of the White Moon- 
tain region. 

The ao(Aitma to not ao rich aa that of the latter conntiy, becanae waa^ 
lag la certain "Alleghanlan** blrda fbnad there, and alao In apcclea 
belonging eapedally to the Eaaiem or North-eaatem Canadian Ihnna. 
Keata, moreoTcr, aeem to be mora commonlj Inaeoeaalble, and rarely 
boUt baalde coada or wood-patha, aa they often are In the White Moan* 

1* Botatn. TMhia m^^raforlut (Unnana). Moderately common. 
Sometlmea (bnndln the wooda. 

<• Hermit Tlimsh. T\ardn$ PcOUui (Cabanto). Common. Slnga 
natU the middle of Aagnat (B.). 

8. Bwalnaon'g ThlnulLi IWtfut Swtim$otU (Cabaato). The com- 
moneat thmah. 

4. Oat-blrd» Mimu$ Car^Un^uU (LUaimnal), Obaerred beyond the. 
monnUlaa to the northward, near Malone. 

5* BltiaBird. SfUdia $iaii$ (lAwnmvtB). Common near Malone. 

e. Gk>ldan-orown6d'*Wren.*' A^^lut MtfrcgM (Llcbten.). Qalte 
common; often heard alnglng In Jane. 

7. Ohiokadae. Hmu oMu^um (Llnnieaa). Bather acaroe In 
Jane. Abundant In Auguat (R.). 

8< HndBOnian Chlokadee. Fanu BudMtmicui (Forater). Found 
la email flocka at Bay Pond In the early part of August (R.). 

0. Bed-bellied Nuthatoh. iSilttaGBiiadmfi0(Llnn«ua). Common. 
The White-bellied Nuthatch has not been obsenred here by us. 

10* Brown Creeper. OIirtMa /omfilorlt (Llnn«us). Common. 

11. Winter Wren. 7iroglodtt$$ hymaU$ (VIeUlot). Moderate 
common. 

FACSDflLE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF THE "CATJajOGXSE OF SUMMER BIRDS.** 
MADE IN 1877 BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Ji.. AND H. D. MINOT 



zoz 



I02 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

to build his beloved home. Sagamore Hill), and there, having 
climbed the sandy bulwark, we would sit on the top of the ledge 
looking out on the shimmering waters of the Sound, and he would 
recite with a lilting swing in the tone of his voice which matched 
the rhythm of the words: 

''In a coign of the diff between lowland and highland, 
By the sea down's edge, twizt windward and lee, 
Walled roimd by rocks like an inland island. 
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea. 
A girdle of brush-wood and thorn encloses 
The steep-scarred slope of the blossomless bed, 
Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its 
Now lie dead." 



He always loved the rhjrthm of Swinburne, just as he loved later 
the wonderful ringing lines of ELipling, which he taught to his 
children and constantly repeated to himself. 

In the summer of 1877 the two brothers, Elliott and Theo- 
dore, decided to row from Oyster Bay in their small boats to 
Whitestone, near Flushing, where my aimt Mrs. Grade was 
living in an old farmhouse. Elliott was really the sailor of the 
family, an expert sailor, too, and loved to manage his 20-footer, 
with able hand, in the stormiest weather, but Theodore craved 
the actual effort of the arms and back, the actual sense of meet- 
ing the wave dose to and not from the more shdtered angle of 
a sailboat; and so the two young brothers who were perfectly 
devoted to each other started on the more adventurous trip 
together. They were caught in one of the sudden storms of the 
Long Island Sound, and their frail boats were very nearly 
swamped, but the luck which later became with Theodore Roose- 
vdt almost proverbial, was with them, and the two exhausted 
and bedraggled, wave-beaten boys arrived sordy in need of the 
care of the devoted aunt who, as much as in the days when she 
taught their A B C's to the children of the nursery of 20th Street, 
was still their guardian angeL 



Collie Chums 103 

In Sq>teinbery 1877, Theodore returns as a sophomore to 
Cambridge and writes in October again: "Sweet Pussie: Thank 
you ever so much, darling, for the three, cunning, littk books 
which I am going to call my 'Pussie Books.' They were just 
what I wanted. In answer to your question, I may say that it 
does not seem to make the slightest difference to Brooks and 
Hooper that they have been dropped, although Brooks is uni- 
versally called 'Freshie.' My respect for the qualities of my 
classmates has much increased lately, by the way, as they now 
no longer seem to think it necessary to confine their conversation 
exclusively to athletic subjects. I was especially struck by this 
the other night, when, after a couple of hours spent in boxing 
and wrestling with Arthur Hooper and Ralph Ellis, it was pro- 
posed to finish the evening by reading aloud from Tennyson 
and we became so interested in ^In Memoriam' that it was past 
one o'clock when we separated." (Evidently the lover of books 
was beginning to be a leader in making his associates share his 
love of the poets.) 

In November he writes again: ''I sat up last ni^t until 
twelve, reading 'Poems & Poets'; some of the boys came down 
to my room and we had a literary coffee party. They became 
finally interested in Edgar Poe — ^probably because they could 
not understand him." My brother always had a great admira- 
tion for Edgar Allan Poe, and would chant ''The Raven" and 
"Ulalume" in a strange, rather weird, monotonous tone. He 
especially delighted in the reference to ''the Dank Tarn of Au- 
ber" and the following lines: 

"I knew not the month was October, 
I knew not the day of the year, — " 

Poe's rhjrthm and curious, suggestive, melancholy quality 
of perfection affected strongly his imagination, and he placed 
him hig^ in rank amongst the poets of his time. 

One can picture the young men, strong and vigorous, wres- 
tling and boxing together in Theodore Roosevelt's room, and 



I04 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

then putting aside their athletic contests, making their coffee 
with gay nonchalance, and settling down to a night of poetry, led 
in the paths of literature by the blue-eyed young ^^Berseiker," 
as my mother used to call Theodore in those college days. 

During the summer of 1877 ^7 '&ther accompanied my sister 
Anna to Bar Harbor on one of her annual excursions to that 
picturesque part of the Maine coast, where they visited Mr. 
George Minot and his sisters. He writes to my mother in his 
usual vein of delightful interest in people, books, and nature, 
and seems more vigorous than ever, for he describes wonderful 
walks over the mountains and speaks of having achieved a rq>u- 
tation as a mountain-climber. How little any of the family 
who adored him realized that from a strain engendered by that 
climbing the seed of serious trouble had been sown in that splen- 
did mechanism, and that in a few short months the vigorous 
and still yoimg man of forty-six was to lay down that useful life 
which had been given so ardently and unselfishly for the good 
of his dty and the joy and benefit of his family. 

At this time, however, when Theodore went back to college 
as a sophomore, there was no apprehension about my father's 
health, and the first tenn of the college year was passed in his 
usual hai^y activities. 

Shortly after the New Year my father's condition became 
serious, due to intestinal trouble, and the following weeks were 
passed in anxious nursing, the distress of which was greatly ac- 
centuated by the frightful suffering of the patient, who, how- 
ever, in spite of constant agony, bore the sudden shattering of 
his wonderful health with magnificent courage. My brother 
Theodore could not realize, as did my brother Elliott, who was 
at home, the serious condition of our father, for it was deemed 
best that he should not return from college, where difficult ex- 
aminations required all his application and eneigy. Elliott 
gave unstintedly a devotion which was so tender that it was 
more like that of a woman, and his young strength was poured 
out to help his father's condition. The best physidans searched 



College Chums 105 

in vain for remedy for the hidden trouble^ but in spite of all their 
efforts the first Theodore Roosevelt died, February 9, 1878, 
and the gay young ooliege sophomore was recalled to a house of 
niouming. In spite of the sorrow, in spite of a sense of irrep- 
arable loss, there was something infinitely inspiring in the days 
preceding and following my father's death. When New York 
City knew that its benefactor lay in extreme illness, it seemed as 
if the whole city came to the door of his home to ask news of 
him. How well I remember the day before his death, when the 
papeis had announced that there was but little hope of his 
recovery. The crowd of individuals who filled 57th Street in 
their effort to hear the physicians' bulletin conceimng his condi- 
tion was huge and varied. Newsboys from the West Side Lodg- 
ing House, little Italian girls from his Sunday-school class, sat 
ior hours on the stone steps of 6 West 57th Street, our second 
home, waiting with anxious intensity for news of the man who 
meant more to them than any other human being had ever 
meant before; and those more fortunate ones who had known 
him in another way drove unceasingly up in their carriages to 
the door and looked with sympathetic interest at the children 
of the slums who shared with them such a sense of bitter be- 
reavement and loss in the premature death of one so closely 
connected with all sides of his beloved native dty. 

Meanwhile, the family of the first Theodore Roosevelt seemed 
hardly able to face the blank that life meant when he left them, 
but diey also felt that the man who had preached always that 
''one must live for the living" would have wished "his own'' 
to follow out his ideal of life, and so each one of us took up, as 
bravely as we could, our special duties and felt that our dose 
family tie must be made stronger rather than weaker by the 
loss that we had sustained. 

On March 3, 1878, my brother writes from Cambridge: 

My own darling, sweet, little treasure of a Pussie: Oh! I 
have so longed for you at times during the last few days. Dar- 



io6 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

ling one, you can hardly know what an inestimable blessing to 
a fellow it is to have such a home as I have. Even now that 
our dear father has been taken away, it is such a great pleasure 
to look forward to a visit home; and indeed, he has only 'gone 
before,' and oh I what living and loving memories he has left 
behind him. I can /se/ hb presence sometimes when I am sitting 
alone in the evening; I have not fdt nearly as sad as I expected 
to fed, although, of course, there are every now and then very 
bitter moments. I am going to bring home some of his sweet 
letters to show you. I shall always keq> them, if merely as talis- 
mans against evil. Kiss little mother for me, and my love to 
Aunt Susie and Uncle Hill. p!d!y mother and I were staying in 
PhOaddphia with my aunt Mrs. West.] Tell the latter. Uncle 
Hill, I am looking forward to spending a month of nude hap- 
piness with him next summer among the wilds of Oyster Bay. 

YouK LOVING Teddy. 

When my brother q)eaks of keeping my father's letters to 
him as '^ talismans against evil,'' he not only expressed the feel- 
ing of desire to keq> near him always the actual letters written 
by my father, but far more the spirit with which these letters 
are permeated. Years afterward, when the college boy of 1878 
was entering upon his duties as President of the United States, 
he told me frequentiy that he never took any serious stq> or 
made any vital decision for his country without tHinlring first 
what position his father would have taken on the question. The 
day that he moved into the White House happened to be Sep- 
tember 22, the day of my father's birth, and dining with him 
that night in the White House for the first time, we all men- 
tioned this fact and felt that it was a good omen for the future, 
and my brother said that every time he dated a letter that day 
he fdt with a glow of tender memory the realization that it was 
his father's birthday, and that his father's blessing seemed spe- 
daUy to follow him on that first day when he made his home in 
the beautiful old white mansion which stands in the heart of 



Collie Chums 107 

America for all that America means to her sons and daugh- 
ters. 

Several other equally loving letters in that March of 1878 
proved how the constant thoughts of the young sophomore 
turned to the family at home, and also his own sense of loss 
in his father's death, but I think the many interests and normij 
surroundings brought their healing power to the boy of nineteen, 
and at the end of that year of his college life he had become a 
well-rounded character. His mind, intelligently focussed upon 
many intellectual subjects, had broadened in scope, and physi- 
cally he was no bnger the delicate, dreamy boy of earlier days. 
The period of his college life, although not one of as unusual 
interest as perhaps other periods in his life, was of inestimable 
value in the forming of his character. Had Theodore Roose- 
velt continued to be abnormally devebped along the scientific 
and intellectual side of his nature, he would never have become 
the *' All-American" which he was destined to be. It was neces- 
sary for him to fall into more commonplace grooves; it was 
necessary for him to meet the young men of his age on common 
ground, to get the '^ give-and-take" of a life very different from 
the more or less individual life which, owing to his ill health and 
intellectual aspirations, he had hitherto led, and already, by the 
end of the second year of college, he was b^inning to take a 
place in the circle of his friends which showed in an embiyonic 
way the leadership which later was to be so strongly evidenced. 

On October 8, 1878, returning to Cambridge as a junior, he 
writes to his mother: ''Darling, beloved, little motherling: I 
have just loved your dear, funny, pathetic, little letter, and I 
am now going to write you the longest letter I ever write, and 
if it is still rather short, you must recollect that it takes Teddy- 
boy a long time to write. I have enjoyed Charlie "Dickeys being 
here extremely, and I think I have been of some service to him. 
We always go to prayers together; for his own sake, I have not 
been much with him in the daytime, but every evening, we spend 
a good part of the time together in my room or his. He is just 



io8 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

the same^ honest, fine fellow as ever, and unless I am very much 
mistaken, is going to make a thorough success in every way of 
college. My studies do not come very well this year, as I have 
to woik nearly as hard on Saturday as on any other day— six, 
seven or eight hours. Some of the studies are extremely interest- 
ing, however, especially Political Economy and Metaphysics. 
These are both rather hard, requiring a good deal of work, but 
they are even more interesting than my Natural Histoiy courses; 
and all the more so from the fact that I radically disagree on 
many points with the men whose books we are reading, (Mill 
and Ferrier). One of my zook^cal courses is rather dry, but 
the other I like very much, thougih it necessitates ten or twelve 
hours' work a week. My German is not very interesting, but I 
expect that my Italian will be when I get further on. For exer- 
cise, I have had to rely on walking, but today I have regularly 
begun sparring. I practice a good deal with the rifle, walking 
to and from the range, which is nearly three miles off; my scores 
have been fair, although not very good. Funnily enough, I 
have enjoyed quite a burst of popularity since I came back, 
having been elected into several different clubs. My own friends 
have, as usual, been perfect trumps, and I have been asked to 
spend Sundays with at least a half-dozen of them, but I have 
to come back to Cambridge Sunday mornings on account of 
Sunday School, which makes it more difficult to pay visits. I 
indulged in a luxury the other day in buying ^The Library of 
British Poets,' and I delight in my purchase veiy much, but I 
have been so busy that I have hardly had time to read it yet. 
I shall really have to have a new bookcase for I have nowhere 
to put my books. • . . Your loving son, T. Jr." 

The above letter is of distinct interest for several reasons: 
first of all, because of the affectionate pains taken by the young 
man of now nearly twenty to keq> his mother informed about 
all his activities, intellectual, ph3rsical, and social. So many 
yoimg men of that age are careless of the great interest taken 
by their mothers and do not share with them the jo}rs and dif- 
ficulties of college life. All through his life, from his boyhood 



Collie Chums 109 

to the very last weeks of his busy existence, my brother Theodore 
was a great sharer. This is all the more miusual because, as a 
rule, the man of intellectual pursuits is apt to deny himself to 
the claims of family and friends, but not so with Theodore Roose- 
velt, except during the period of some specially hard task, when 
he would g^ himself to it to the exclusion of every other in- 
terest. Unless during such rare periods, no member of his family 
ever went to him for guidance or solace or interest without the 
most generous and most loving response. In the above letter he 
shows his response to the tender inquiries of his mother, so lately 
widowed, and he wishes to give her all the information that 
she desires. One can see that the young junior, as he now was, 
was coming into his own in more ways than one. He is working 
harder intellectually; already metaph3rsics and political econo- 
my are catching up with '^natural history" in his affections, and, 
in fact, outdistancing the latter. His individual point of vkw 
is shown by the fact that he '^radically disagrees on many points 
with Mill and Ferrier," and he again shows the persevering de- 
termination, so largely a part of his character, in the way in 
which he walks to and fro the three miles to practise with his 
rifle at the range. The modest way in which he speaks of his 
"burst of popularity'' is also very characteristic, for he received 
the unusual distinction of being invited to join several of the 
most popular clubs. Altogether, this letter in which he tells, 
although he makes no point of it, of his still faithful service at 
Sunday-school, no matter how much it interferes with the gay 
week-end visits which he so much enjoys, and the glimpse which 
he ^ves us of his love of poetry as an offset to his harder 
studies, seems to me to depict in a lovable and admirable light 
the young Harvard student. 

Having written in this accurate way to his mother, within 
a month he writes to his younger sister: 

Sweet Pussie: I am spending Sunday with Minot Weld. 
It is a beautiful day and this afternoon we are going to drive 
over to Dick Saltonstall's where we shall go out walking with 



no My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Miss Rose Saltonstall and Miss Alice Lee, and drive home by 
moonlight after tea. I have begun stud}dng fairly hard now, 
and shall keep it up until Christmas. I am afraid I shall not 
be able to come home for Thanksgiving; I really have my hands 
fully especially now that my Political Economy Professor wishes 
me to start a Finance Club, which would be very interesting 
indeed, and would do us all a great deal of good, but which will 
also take up a great deal of time. Of course, I spend a good 
deal of my spare time in the Porcellian Club which is great fim. 
Night before last, Harry Shaw and I gave a little supper up 
there, the chief items on the bill of fare were partrid^ and 
Buigundy, — ^I, confining myself to the partridges. I am going 
to cut Sunday school today for the second time this year, but 
when the weather is so beautiful as this, I like every now and 
then to spend Simday with a friend. Harry Chapin is going to 
take my dass for me today. Good-bye sweet one, — 

YouE Loving Tsna 

Here again we see the growth of the young man, the growth 
of his influence in his class, for it is to him that the Political 
Economy professor turns to start a finance club, and we see also 
the proportionate all-round development, for not only does he 
read poetry, start finance clubs, differ with Mill and Ferrier on 
abstract subjects, but also joins with Harry Shaw in a little sup- 
per of partridges and Burgundy— he confining himself, I would 
have my readers know, to the partridges I Theodore Roosevelt 
was growing in every way and especially becoming the more 
all-roimd man, and it was well that this growth should take 
place, for if the all-round man can still keep focussed ideab and 
strong determination to achieve in individual directions, it is 
because of the all-round qualities that he becomes the leader 
of men. Again the happy Christmas holidays came, but this 
time shadowed by the great blank made by my father's loss, 
and in February, 1879, he writes again — ^now of happy coasting- 
parties at the Saltonstalls', where began his intimate relation- 



G)ll^e Chums iii 

shq) with lovely Alice Lee, who later became his wife. One can 
see the meny young people flying, as he says, ''like the wind," 
on their long toboggans, and then having a gay dance at the 
hosintable house of Mrs. Lee. 

In March he writes: ''I only came out second best in the 
q>arring contest, but I do not care very much for I have had 
uncommonly good luck in eveiything this year from studies to 
society. I enjoyed my trip to Maine veiy much indeed; of 
course, I fell behind in my studies, but by working pretty hard 
last week, I succeeded in nearly catching up again." This trip 
to Maine cemented the great friendship between my brother 
and those splendid backwoodsmen, Bill Sewall and Will Dow, 
who were later to be partners in his ranching venture in the Far 
West. Bill Sewall was a strong influence in my brother's young 
manhood, and for him great admiration was conceived by the 
young dty boy and, later, by the college student. The splendid, 
simple, strong man of the woods, though not having had similar 
educational advantages, was still so earnest a reader and so 
natural a philosopher that his attitude toward books and life 
had lasting influence over his young companion. 

About this same time, March, 1879, my brother wrote me 
one of the sweetest and most characteristic of his little love- 
letters. It was dated from the Porcellian Club on March 28, 
and enclosed a diminutive birch-bark book of poetry, and the 
letter ran as follows: "Wee Pussy, I came across such a funny, 
wee book of poetry today, and I send it to a wee, funny Kitty 
Coo, with Teddy's best love." The page on which the sweet 
words are written is yellow, but the little birch-bark book is 
still intact, and the great love engendered by the tender thought 
of, and expression of that thought to, his sister is even deeper 
than when the sweet words were actually written. 

On May 3 he writes in a humorous vein: 'Tet Pussie: At 
last the deed is done and I have shaved off my whiskers ! The 
consequence, I am bound to add, is that I look like a dissolute 
democrat of the Fourth Ward; I send you some tintypes I had 



112 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

PORCCLUAN CUIB. 





9 



CtcfiMi Aoc^ 







^l- Cp 



CL ^%4^^^ 





Cav ^ 







LETTER TO OORINNE ROOSEVELT : ACCOMPANYING "BIRCH BARK POEMS" 

taken; the front views are pretty good, although giving me 
an expression of glum misery that I sincerely hope is not natural. 
The side views do not resemble me any more than they do 
Michael Angelo or John A. Weeks. The next four months are 
going to be one 'demnition grind' but by great good luck, I shall 



College Chums 113 

be able to leave here June sth, I think.'' The whiskers were 
permanently removed and never again reappeared, ezcq>t on 
his hmiting trip the following year, and I think he felt, himself, 
that the lack of them added a touch of elegance to his appear- 
ance, for he writes again within a day or two: ''I rode over on 
Saturday morning (very swell with hunting crop and beaver) 
to Chestnut Hill where I took lunch with the Lees." He is be- 
ginning to be quite a gentleman of fashion, and so the care-free 
days glide by, another summer comes, with pleasant visits, and 
another Maine woods excursion; but even when writing in the 
midst of house-parties of bewildering gaiety, he adds at the 
end of a long letter in August, 1879, ''For my birthday, among 
the books I most want are the complete editions of Prescott, 
Motley, and Carlyle," and signs himself ''Your loving St. Buv.," 
a new pet name which he had given himself and which was a 
congbmerate of St. Beuve, for whose writings he had great ad- 
miration, and the brother for whom his little sister had such 
great admiration. 

His last year at college was one of equal growth, although 
the devekpment was not as apparent as in his junior year, and 
in June, 1880, he graduated with honors, a happy, successful 
Harvard altmmus. A number of his New York friends went 
on for class day, and all made merry together, and not tong after- 
wards he and his brother Elliott started on a hunting trip to- 
gether. Elliott, who as a young child had been the strong one, 
when Theodore was a delicate little boy, had, during the years of 
adolescence, been somewhat of an invalid and could not go to 
college; our father, wise as ever, decided he must have his edu- 
cation in another way, and he arranged for Elliott to spend sev- 
eral years largely in the open air. He became a splendid shot, 
and my brother Theodore always felt that Elliott was far the 
better hunter of the two. The brothers were devoted to each 
other, and were each the complement of the other in character. 
Theodore writes from Wilcox's farm, Illinois, August 22, 1880: 
"Darling Pussie: We have been having a lovely time so far, 



114 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

have shot fair quantities of game, are in good health, thouj^ 
our fare and accommodations are of the roughest. The shoot- 
ing is great fun; you would laug^ to see us start off m a wagon, 
in our roug^, dirty, hunting-suits, not looking very different 
from our driver; a stub-tailed, melancholy looking pomter under 
the front seat, and a yellow, fool idea of a setter under the back 
one, which last is always getting walked on and howling dis^ 
maUy. We enjoy the long drives veiy much: the roads are 
smooth and tevdy, and the country, a vast undulating prairie, 
cut up by great fields of com and wheat with few trees. The 
birds are not veiy plentiful, but of great variety; we get prairie 
chickens in the stubble fields, ptever in the pastures, snipe in 
the 'slews,' and ducks in the ponds. We hunt about an hour 
or two in a place, then get into our wagon and drive on, so that, 
though we cover a veiy large tract of country, we are not very 
tired at the end of the day, only enough to make us sleq) well. 
The climate is simply superb, and though the scenery is not 
veiy varied, yet there is something veiy attractive to me in these 
gieat treeless, rolling plains, and Nellie [his pet name for Elliott] 
and I are great chums, and in the evening, sit and compare our 
adventures in 'other lands' until bedtime which is pretty early.'^ 
And again he writes a few weeks later from Chicago, in a 
veiy bantering vein: 

September 12, 1880— Darling Pussie: We have come back 
here aiter a week's hunting in Iowa. Elliott revels in the change 
to civilization — and epicurean pleasures. As soon as we got 
here he took some ale to get the dust out of his throat; then a 
milk punch because he was thirsty; a mint julep because it wa& 
hot; a brandy mash ^^to keq> the cold out of his stomach"; and 
then sherry and bitters to give him an appetite. He took a veiy 
sunple dinner — soup, fish, salmi de grouse, sweetbread, mutton,, 
venison, com, macaroni, various vegetables and some puddings, 
and pies, together with beer, later claret and in the evening, 
shandigaff. I confined mvself to roast beef and potatoes; when 




the way to the hunting 









i:. 



Collie Chums 115 

I took a second help he marvelled at my appetite — and at bed- 
tune, wondered why in thmider he felt ''stuffy" and / didn't. 
The good living also reached his brain, and he tried to lure me 
into a discussion about the intellectual development of the Hin- 
doos, coupled with some rather discursive and scarcely logical 
digressions about the Infinity of the Infinite, the Sunday school 
system, and the planet Mars, together with some irrelevant 
remarks about Texan ''Jack Rabbits" which are apparently 
about as large as good-sized cows. Elliott says that these re- 
marks are incorrect and malevolent; but I say they pay him 
off for his last letter about my eating manners ! We have had 
very good fun so far, in spite of a succession of untoward ac- 
ddents and delays. I broke both my guns, EUiott dented his, 
and the shooting was not as good as we had expected; I got 
bitten by a snake and chucked headforemost out of the wagon. 

YouK Seedy Brother, Theo. 

Nothing could better exemplify the intimate, comprehending 
relationship of the two brothers than the above letter, in which, 
with exaggerated fun, Theodore "pays Elliott off" for his criti- 
cisms of the future President's eating manners I All through 
their lives — alas I Elliott's life was to end prematurely at the 
age of thirty-three — ^the same relationship endured between 
them. Each was fuU of rare charm, joy of life, and unselfish 
interest in his fellow man, and thus they had much in common 
always. 

Hie hunting trip described so vividly in these two letters 
was, in a sense, the dimax of this period of my brother's Ufe. 
College days were over, the hi^py summer following his gradua- 
tion was also on the wane, and within a brief six weeks from the 
time these letters were written, Theodore Roosevelt, a married 
num, was to go forth on the broader avenues of his life's destiny. 



ii8 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

criticisms by the young man not yet twenty-three have their 
value because they show iSo distinctly the character of the young 
man himself. One sees the interest which he takes in his human- 
kind as represented by certain types of Dutch pictures, and also 
his love for spiritual beauty, when not belittled by insipidity. 
Perhaps the last sentence of this letter is most characteristic 
of all of his own vital spirit. He does not wish to pity the Christ; 
he almost insists that pity must be lost in admiration and rev- 
erence. Pity always seemed to Theodore Roosevelt an unde- 
sirable quality; tenderest sympathy he gave and craved— l>ut 
never pity. 

After this brief artistic sojourn he plunged with great energy, 
on his return, into the drudgery of political life in his own dis- 
trict. Many were the criticisms of his friends and acquain- 
tances at the thought of his taking up dty or state politics from 
a serious standpoint. At that time, even more than now, 
''politics" was considered as something far removed from the 
life of any one brought up to other spheres than that of mud- 
slinging and corruption. All "polities'^ was more or less re- 
garded as inextricably intertwined with the above. Theodore 
Roosevelt, however, realized from the very begiomng of his 
life that "armchair" criticism was inefifectual, and, because in- 
effectual, undesirable. If one were to regard oneself in the light 
of a capable critic, the actual criticism immediately obligated 
the person indulging in it to io something about the matter. 
He often used to quote the old story of ''Squeers" in "Nichdas 
Nickleby," that admirable old novel of Charles Dickens, in which 
''Do the Boys' Hall" was so amusingly described. Mr. Squeers, 
the master of the above school, would call up a pupil and ask 
him to spell window. He pronounced it "winder," and the 
pupil in turn would spell it "w-i-n-d-e-r." The spelling would 
not be corrected but the boy would receive the injunction to 
"go and wash it," and my brother always said that while he 
did not approve of "Squeers' " spelling— nor indeed of other 
methods practised by hun — that the "go and wash it" was an 



The Young Reformer 119 

admirable method to follow in political life. The veiy fact 
that, although by no means a wealthy man, he had a sufficient 
competence to make it unnecessary for him to earn his own liv- 
ing, made him fed that he must devote his life largely to public 
affairs. He realized that unless the men of his type and caliber 
interested themsdves in American government, the dty, state, 
and country in whidi they lived would not have the benefit 
of educated minds and of incorruptible characters. He there^ 
fore set himself to work to learn the methods used in ordinary 
political life, and, by learning the methods, to fit himself to 
fight intelligently whatever he found unworthy of free American 
dtizenshq). 

He has described this part of his life in his own auto- 
biography. He has told of how he met Joseph Murray, a force 
in the political district, who became his devoted adherent, and 
how he decided himself to become one of the '^ governing class." 
This effort resulted in his nomination for the New York State 
Assembly, and on Januaiy i, 1882, Tlieodore Roosevdt became 
outwardly, what inwaidly he had always been, a devoted public 
servant. That winter remains in my mind as one of intense in- 
terest in all of his activities. We were all living at my mother's 
home in 57th Street, and he spent part of the week in Albany, 
returning, as a rule, on Friday for the week-end. Many were 
the long talks, many the humorous accounts given us of his adr 
ventures as an assemblyman, and all the time we, his family, 
realized that an influence unusual in that New York State As- 
sembly was beginning to be fdt. Already, by the end of a month 
or so, he was known as "the Young Reformer," ardent and 
earnest, who pleaded for right thinking, and definite practical 
interpretation of right thinking. His name was on the lips of 
many before he had been three months an assemblyman, and 
already his native dty was beginning to take a more than 
amused interest in his activities. 

A certain highbrow dub called "The 19th Century Club," 
whose president was the editor of the Evening Post (a paper 



1 20 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 



then nor later always in accord with the ideals and meth- 
ods of Hieodore Roosevelt!), invited the young assemblyman 
to make an address before its members. He accepted the invi- 
tation, feeling, as he always did, that it was well to give the type 
of message that he wished to give to the type of citizens of which 
that dub was composed. Following my invariable custom 
whenever it was possible for me to do so, I accompanied him to 
the meeting. Hie method of procedure in ''Hie 19th Centuiy 
Club" was as follows: The speaker of the evening was al- 
lowed to choose his own subject, announced, of course, several 
weeks in advance, and he was given a half-hour in whidi to de- 
velop his idea. A second speaker was invited to rebut the first 
speaker. The speaker of the evening was then allowed ten 
minutes to rebut the rebutter. It is, I think, of special inter- 
est to remember that the young assemblyman, twenty-three 
years of age, chose for his subject the same theme on which the 
man of sixty, who was about to die, wrote his last message to 
his countrymen. 

Theodore Roosevdt announced that he would speak to ''The 
19th Centuiy Club" on "Americanism." A brilliant editor of 
an able newspaper was asked to make the speech in answer to 
the address of "the Young Reformer." As I say, I went with 
my brother to the meeting and sat directly under him in a front 
seat. It was the first time I had ever heard him speak in public 
and I confess to having been extremdy nervous. He was never 
an orator, although later his speeches were delivered with great 
charm of manner and diction, but at this early stage of his career 
he had not the graces of an older and more finished speaker. I 
can see him now as he came forward on the platform and began 
with eager ardor his plea for Americanism. Every fibre of my 
being responded to him and to his theme, but I seemed to be 
alone in my response, for the somewhat chilly audience, full of 
that same armchair criticism of which I have spoken, gave but 
little response to the desire of the heart of Hieodore Roosevelt, 
and when he had finished his half-hour's presentation of his 
plea, there was very little applause, and he sat down looking 



The Young Reformer 121 

somewhat nervous and disi^pointed. Then the brilliant man, 
twice the age of Theodore Roosevelt, who had been chosen to 
reply to him, rose, and with deft oratorical manipulation rang 
the changes on eveiy '^ism*' he could think of, using as his fun- 
damental argument the fact that all ''isms" were fads. He 
spoke of the superstition of spiritualism, the extravagance of 
fanaticism, the hypocrisy of hypnotism, the plausibility of 
socialism — and the highbrow members of ''The 19th Century 
Club" were with the brilliant orator from start to finish, and as 
he closed his subtile aigument, which left Americanism high 
and diy on the shores of faddism, the audience felt that "the 
Young Reformer" had had his lesson, and gave genuine applause 
to his opponent. 

Half-way through that opponent's address, I confess, on my 
own part, to having experienced a great feeling of discourage- 
ment; not because I agreed with what he said, but because of the 
e£fect produced upon the listeners; but suddenly I saw my 
brother smile the same smile which used to cross his face in later 
years when some heckler would try to embarrass him from the 
back of a great hall, and he took a pencil and wrote something 
on his cuff. Hie smile was transitoiy but it gave me fresh hope, 
and I knew quite well that the audience would hear somethmg 
worth while, if not to their liking, in the last ten minutes of the 
evemng, when, as I said before, the speaker of the evening was 
aUowed to rebut the rebutter. The clever editor sat down amidst 
interested applause, and "the Young Reformer" stq)ped once 
more forward to the edge of the platform. He leaned far over 
from the platform, so earnest, so eager was he, and this is what 
he said: "I believe that I am allowed ten minutes in which to 
refute the arguments of my opponent. I do not need ten min- 
utes — ^I do not need five minutes — ^I hardly need one minute — ^I 
shall ask you one question, and as you answer that question, 
you will dedde who has won this argument-— myself or the gentle- 
man on the other side of this platform. My question is as fol- 
lows: If it is true that all isms are fads, I would ask you. Fellow 



122 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Citizens, what about PaHoiism?" The audience rose to its 
feet; even ''The 19th Century Club" could not but acknowledge 
that patriotism was a valuable attribute for American citizens 
to possess. That was the first time that Theodore Roosevelt, 
in public, asked of his fellow countrymen, ''What about Patriot- 
ism?" but all his life long, from that time on, it was the ques- 
tion forever on his Ups, the question which his own life most 
adequately answered. 

Li April of that same year, Theodore, an assemblyman not 
yet twenty-four, had alrrady made himself so conspicuous a 
figure that mention of him and his attitudes was constantiy in 
the New York press. In an envelope, put away long ago, I find 
an excerpt from the New York Tip$eSf April 5, 1882. It is yellow 
with age and brittle, but there was something ineffaceable and 
prophetic in the faded words; I quote: 

"He called from the table his resolution directing an inves- 
tigation by the Standing Judiciary Conmiittee of the acts of 
Judge Westbrook and £z-Attoniey General Ward in connec- 
tion with the gigantic stock jobbing scheme of the Manhattan 
Railroad Co. Elevated). Ez-Govemor Alvord tried to prevent 
resolution, but it was carried 48^22. As Mr. Roosevelt rose to 
speak, the House, for ahnost the only time during the Session, 
grew silent and listened to every word that he uttered." 

In the midst of a body of men somewhat inclined to a cer- 
tain kind of careless irreverence, it is of marked interest that 
"as Mr. Roosevelt rose to speak, the House, for ahnost the only 
time during the Session, grew silent and listened to eveiy word 
that he uttered." To how few young men of twenty-three would 
"the House" accord such respect! As I say, the attitude was 
prophetic, for Uie following forty years, no matter how fiercely 
he was criticised, no matter what fuiy of invective was launched 
against him, no matter how jealously and vindictively he was 
occasionally opposed, there was never a place where Hieodore 
Roosevelt rose to speak that he was not listened to with great 
attention. 



r 



The Young Reformer 123 

In the Sun of the same date the account of the incident runs 
as follows: "Mr. Roosevelt's speech was delivered with de- 
liberation and measured emphasis, and his charges were made 
with a boldness that was almost startling." Those first two 
years of his career as an assemblyman showed, indeed, again, 
that the youth was father to the man. The characteristics which 
marked his whole public life never showed more dominantly 
than as a young assemblyman in Albany. Uncompromising 
courage was combined with common sense, and the power of 
practical though never unworthy compromise was as evident 
then as later in his life. Those years have been fully dwelt upon 
in his own autobiography. 

The great tragedy of his young wife's death at the birth of 
her first child was an even greater tragedy because the death 
of our lovely mother occurred twenty-four hours before her son's 
wife passed away. Our mother's home at 57th Street had been 
the background of our young married life, as it had been the 
foreground of our youth, and the winter of 1884 had been 
spent by my husband and myself at 6 West 57th Street, and the 
consequence was that as Theodore also made his headquarters 
there, we had been much together, and that very fact made it 
even harder to break up the home which had been so long the 
centre of our family life. 

The next two years were almost the saddest of our happy 
lives. My brother had, fortunately, already interested himself 
in a ranching enterprise in North Dakota, and although he re- 
turned to the assembly in February, 1884, and with his usual 
courage finished his year of duty there, he turned gladly to the 
new life of the West, and became, through his absolute com- 
prehension of the pioneer type of the cowboy and the ranch- 
man, not only one of them from a physical standpoint, but also 
one of them from the standpoint of understanding their mental 
outlook: 

In June, 1884, however, before starting for Dakota, he was 
to meet one of the serious political decisions of his life. That 



124 ^y Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

spring, when it came time to elect delegates to the Republican 
National Convention, he was, with the hearty approval of the 
great mass of his party, chosen as the chief of the four dd^gates- 
at-large from New York State. Mr. Joseph Bucklin Bishop 
gives in his history of ''Theodore Roosevelt and His Time" a 
short account of that convention, of which I quote part: 

"He went to the National Convention an avowed advocate 
of the nomination of Senator John F. Edmunds of Vermont as 
Republican Candidate for the Presidency in preference to James 
G. Blaine. The New York Times of June 4th, 1884, refers to 
him as the leader of the Younger Republicans, and says, 'when 
he spoke, it was not the voice of a youth but the voice of a 
man, and a positive practical man.' '' 

Mr. Bishop describes Mr. Roosevelt's efforts and the efforts 
of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to secure the nomination of their 
choice, and then continues: ''By the nomination of Mr. Blaine 
which followed later, Roosevelt was confronted with what, in 
many respects, was one of the most serious crises of his career. 
He had to decide which of the two courses he should choose; 
he must separate himself completely from his party and become 
an absolute Independent, or stay within his party and support 
its regularly appointed candidate. The nomination of Mr. Blaine 
had been fairly won. He was unquestionably the choice of the 
Convention. There was no claim that the will of the majority 
had been subverted either through the action of a committee 
on contested seats or in any other way. The problem before 
him was thus a quite different one from that presented to him 
twenty-eight years later in the National Republican Conven- 
tion of 191 2. In opposing the nomination of Mr. Blaine, he and 
his Republican Associates had been acting with a considerable 
body of Professional Independents. Tliese men were without 
allegiance to either of the great political parties. Though he 
had been, during his brief public career, an avowed Republican, 
seeking to accomplish all his reforms through Republican aid 
and inside party lines, his Independent associates, as soon as 



The Young Reformer 125 

the Blaine nomination was made, assmned that he would leave 
his party and join them in seeking to accomplish Mr. Blaine's 
defeat by supporting the Democratic candidate. In fact, they 
not merely asked but demanded that he abandon the course 
which he had followed since his entry into political life and upon 
which be had built his public career. They were sincere in their 
belief that he should do so. It seemed incredible to them that 
he could do an}rthing else. He gave them full credit for sin- 
cerity but declared that the question was one that he must in- 
sist upon deciding for himself. 

''He admitted frankly that he had worked hard for the nomi- 
nation of Edmunds but he declined to say at once what course 
he should pursue in regard to the nomination of Mr. Blaine. 
Various devices were used to force him to declare his intentions, 
some by Republican politicians and others by leading Inde- 
pendents, but all in vain. He insisted upon deciding the ques- 
tion for himself and in his own way and tune. He went direct 
from the Convention in Chicago to his ranch in Dakota, and 
several weeks later put forth a formal statement in which he 
defined his decision as follows: 'I intend to vote the Rq>ublican 
Presidential ticket. While at Chicago, I told Mr. Lodge that 
such was my intention but before announcing it, I wished to 
have time to think the matter over. A man cannot act both 
without and within the party; he can do either, but he cannot 
possibly do both. Each course has its advantages and each 
has its disadvantages, and one cannot take the advantages or 
the disadvantages separately. I went in with my eyes open 
to do what I could within the party. I did my best and 
got beaten, and I propose to stand by the result. It is impos- 
sible to combine the functions of a guerilla chief with those of 
a colonel in the r^^ular army; one has a greater independence 
of action, the other is able to make what action he does take 
vastly more effective. In certain contingencies, the one can 
do most good; in certain contingencies the other; but there is 
no use in accq>tiDg a commission and then trying to play the 



126 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

game out on a lone hand. I am by inheritance and by educa- 
tion a Republican. Whatever good I have been able to accom- 
plish in public life has been accomplished through the Repub- 
lican party. I have acted with it in the past and wish to act 
with it in the future. I went as a regular dd^gate to the Chicago 
Convention and intend to abide by the outcome of that Con- 
vention. I am going back in a day or two to my Western ranch 
as I do not intend to take any part in a campaign this Fall.'" 
[This deteimination not to take part in the campaign he re- 
called later, for reasons which were eminently characteristic.] 

** ^ When I started out to my ranch two months ago/ he said 
in October, 'I had no intention of taking any part whatever 
in the Presidential canvass, and the dedsbn I have now come 
to is the result of revolving the matter in my mind during that 
time. It is altogether contrary to my character to keep a neu- 
tral position in so important and ezdting a struggle, and besides 
any natural struggle to keep a position of some kind, I made 
up my mind that it was dearly my duty to support the ticket.' " 

He faced the stonn of disapproval and abuse calmly, and 
in reply to an open letter of regret and remonstrance from an 
Independent, he wrote: "I thank you for your good opinion of 
my past service. My power, if I ever had any, may or may not 
be as utterly gone as you think, but most certainly, it would 
deserve to go if I yidd any more to the pressure of the Inde- 
pendents at present, when I consider ihem to be wrong, than I 
yidded in the past to the pressure of the machine when I thought 
it wrong." He declined a renomination for the assembly, which 
he could have had without opposition, and two separate offers 
of nominations for Congress, on the ground that his private in- 
terestSy which he had neglected during his service in the legis- 
lature, required his attention. 

His courageous attitude in connection with the disapproval 
of the Independents was indeed characteristic. He was invari- 
ably willing to run the risk of the dis^proval of any faction 
when he had positivdy made up his own mind as to the right 



The Young Reformer 127 

or wrong of any question, and he set his mind and heart upon 
those "private interests'' of which he qpeaks. 

In a later chapter I give several of his letteis of this period 
in connection with a trip which he arranged for the members of 
his family to the Elkhom Ranch and the YeUowstone Park in 
1890. All his craving for the out-of-<loor life, all his sympathy 
with pioneer enteiprise, such as his heroes Daniel Boone and 
Davy Crockett had indulged in, were satisfied by those long 
days on the open prairies, and by the building of his ranch-houses 
mth the assistance of his old friends, Bill Sewall and Will Dow, 
the two stanch Maine lumbermen, unde and nephew, with 
whom he had made many an excursion in the Maine woods in 
earlier days. Theodore Roosevelt, however, was not to be al- 
lowed by his country to remain too long the rider and dreamer 
under cottonwood-trees, or even a potent influence for good in 
Western affairs, as he became. Already rumors were abroad 
that he would be the choice of the Republican party for the 
nominee for mayor of New York City, and he was recalled from 
the wilds of North Dakota to a stirring triangular campaign in 
which Henry George, representing "Single Tax" beliefs, Abra- 
ham S. Hewitt, Democratic nominee, and the young ranchman 
from Dakota battled lustily against each other, with the re- 
sult that Mr. Hewitt was elected mayor of New York. 

In the autumn of 1886 be sailed for Europe to marry his 
old friend Edith Carow, and for a brief period led a life of leisure 
and travel. Only very rarely in his busy existence had he time 
for just that life again, and the consequence is that some of his 
letteis at that period have an unusual value. He humorously 
described some of his travels in Italy in a letter dated Decem- 
ber, 1886, as follows: "My ladL of knowledge of the language 
has given me some soul-harrowing moments, — a mixture of 
broken English with Gennan and French proving but an indif- 
ferent substitute for Italian, so I sometimes get what I do not 
want, as when yesterday, an effort to state that after dinner 
we wished only black coffee, expressed with deprecatoiy waves 



128 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

of the hand and the idiomatic phrase, 'c'est genucfa' produced 
in addition, cheese, pastry, and fruit, all brought by the waiter 
in a wild hope that some one of those might satisfy what he evi- 
dently supposed was my untranslatable demand." 

A little later, from Sorrento, he writes in characteristic fash- 
ion, showing that even in so romantic and enthralling a spot as 
Rome he was still ''on duty bent" from the standpoint of writing 
articles for the Century. He says: ''I finished sis articles for the 
Ceniury on ranch life while in Rome and sent them off. I do 
not know whether the Ceniury will want them or not. I read 
them all to Edith and her corrections and help were most valu- 
able to me. Now I am wondering why my 'Life of Benton' 
has not come out. Here, [at Sorrento] I generally take a mod- 
erate walk with Edith every morning, and then a brisk rush by 
myself. I had no idea that it was in me to enjoy the 'dolce 
far niente' even as long as I have. Luckily, Edith would dis- 
like an extended stay in Europe as much as I would." 

In this letter, after speaking of ranch losses which neces- 
sitated selling his beloved hunter, Sagamore, he signs himself, 
"Your extravagant and irrelevant but affectionate brother, the 
White Knight," the latter being a reference to the character in 
"Alice in Wonderland," from which enchanting book we in- 
variably quoted in ordinary conversation or letters. 

From Venice, in February, he writes: "Venice is perfectly 
lovely. It is more strange than any other Italian town, and 
the architecture has a certain florid barbarism about it, — ^Byzan- 
tuie, — dashed with something stronger — ^that appeals to some 
streak in my nature." They returned to London later, and 
were shown many attentions, for even at that early period in 
his life, England recognissed the statesman in Theodore Roose- 
velt He speaks of Mr. Bryce the historian as a "charming 
man" — their friendship was to last all through my brother's 
life, and he mentions majiy other well-known young English* 
men, who have now grown old in their country's service. In a 
letter dated March 6 he says: "I have been having great fun 



The Young Reformer 129 

in London, and have seen just the very nicest people, social, 
political, and literary. We have just come back from a lunch 
at the Jeunes', which was most enjoyable. Edith sat beside 
Chamberlain, who impresses me very much with his keen, shrewd 
intellect and quiet force. I sat between Trevdyan, who was 
just charming, and a Lady Leamington.'' 

Unless I am mistaken, that was the first time my brother 
met Sir George Trevelyan, with whom he carried on a faithful 
and interesting correspondence for many years. ''Mrs. Jeune 
has asked us to dine to meet Lord Charles Beresford and Lord 
Hartington, and I have been put down for the Athenaeum Club, 
and also taken into the Reform Club. Last night, I dined at a 
Bohemian Club, the famous Savage Club, with Healy and one 
or two Pamellites, (having previously lunched with several of 
the Conservatives, Lord Stanhope and Seton-Carr, and others). 
The contrast was most amusing, but I like Healy immensely. 
Later on I met a brother of Stanhope's who is a radical, and 
listened to a most savage discussion with a yoimg fellow named 
Foster, a nephew of the late Secretary of Lreland, who has also 
been very polite to me. I have enjoyed going to the House of 
Commons under the guidance of Bryce, the historian, and a 
dear old Conservative member named Hoare, very greatly. It 
is amusing to see the Conservatives, fresh-looking, weU-built, 
thoroughly well-dressed gentlemen, honest and plucky but ab- 
solutely unable to grapple with the eighty odd, erratic PameUite 
Lishmen. The last named, by the way, I know well of old, — 
I have met them in the New York Legislature I" 

These comments by the yoimg man of twenty-eight are along 
the line of comments made much later when almost all of his re- 
actions to the men named or suggested had come true. The 
travellers were more than glad to get back to their native land, 
and by the early smnmer were settled at Sagamore Hill, to begin 
there the beautiful family life which grew in richness up to the 
moment of my brother's death. 

June 8, 1887, he writes from Sagamore, describing amusingiy 



130 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

his efforts to become a polo-player. He has often expressed his 
own feeling about sports — ^he loved them, enjoyed his hunting 
and other athletic exercises to the full, but they were always a 
relaxation, never a pursuit with him. 'Trank Underbill and 
I ride industriously around the field and brandish our mallets 
so as to foster the delusion among simple folk that we likewise 
are playing polo. Two other would-be players also come now 
and then; but as they have not yet even learned to sit on horse- 
back and strike the ball simultaneously, and, after trial, having 
found it impracticable to do so alternately, our games are gen- 
erally duels. Yesterday, I beat Frank two out of three — and 
in addition, stood on my head on the sward in the enthusiasm 
of one m£16e where we got rather mixed. Day before yesterday, 
I rowed Edith to Lloyd's Neck, portaged across — ^at low tide, 
the hardest work I ever did almost, — ^into Huntington Harbor, 
then rowed out into the Sound. We took our limch and some 
volumes of Thackeray. It was an ideal day — ^but wasn't I stiff 
and blistered next momingl Do come soon and stay as long 
as possible. Yours as ever, Theodore Roosevelt." 

During that same summer I took my little niece Alice, with 
my children, to our old home on the Mohawk Hills for a change 
of air, and he writes me in his usual loving way of his warm ap- 
preciation of the pleasure I was giving the child, and sends his 
love to the little '' yellow-haired darling," and incidentally, in 
the letters, says his book '^ Morris ['^Gouvemeur Morris"] goes 
drearily on by fits and starts, and in the intervals, I chop vigor- 
ously and have lovely rowing excursions"; and so the happy 
summer wore to its close and was crowned in September by the 
birth of his first boy, the third Theodore Roosevelt. He de- 
scribes with amusement little Alice's remark — ''a truthful re* 
mark," he says — " Jfy Uuk brother is a howling polly parrot." 
All through the letter one realizes his joy and pride in his first- 
bom son, and shortly after that, in December of the same year, 
he writes me to congratulate me on the birth of my second son, 
Monroe, and says: ''How glad I am that Ted^ Junior, has a fu- 
ture playmate. Just won't they quarrel, thou^I" 



The Young Reformer 131 

Owing to the fact that in my brother's own biography he 
describes fully his work as civil service commissioner, police 
commissioner, and assistant secretary of the navy, I do not 
purport to give a detailed account of his labors, especially as 
during the period that he served in the first position, I have 
comparatively few letters from him, and it was not until he re* 
turned to New York in the second capacity that I saw as much 
of him as usual. One winter, however, we had a most charac- 
teristic intercourse. I do not remember exactly the date of 
that winter. I had married young, my childien had been bom 
in rapid succession, and owing to the delicacy of my health just 
before I was grown up, I was conscious of the fact that I was 
not as groimded in certain studies, especially American history, 
as I should have been, and I found myself with a very slim 
knowledge of the most important facts of my nation's birth and 
early growth. The consequence was that when my brother 
returned for a brief period to New York, I decided to consult 
him as to how best to study American History, tliinlring per- 
haps that I might go to Columbia College or something of that 
kind. 

I b^gan my effort for infonnation by saying: ^'Theodore, 
I really know very little about American history." I can see 
the flash in his eyes as he turned to me. ''What do you mean?" 
he said; ''it's disgraceful for any woman not to know the history 
of her own country." "I know it is," I rq)lied, "and that is 
just why I am consulting you about it. I know you feel I ought 
to know all about American history, but I also know that you 
preach large families, and you must remember that I have done 
my best in that direction in these last five years, and now I am 
ready to study American history I" "Do you mean really to 
study ? " he said, looking at me sternly. " Just as really to study 
as whooping-coug^, measles, chicken-pox, and other family 
pleasures wQl allow," I said. "Well," he replied, still sternly, 
and not laughing at my sally, "if you really mean to study, 
I wiU teach you myself. I wiU come at nine o'clock every week on 
Tuesday and Friday for one hour, if you will be ready promptly 



132 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

and give me all your attention." Needless to say, I was en- 
chanted at the thought, and, true to his word, the busy man 
came at nine o'clock every Tuesday and Friday for several 
months, and in my library at 422 Madison Avenue I was ready 
with note-book and blackboard, and he lectured to me for that 
hour twice a week as if I were a matriculating class at Harvard 
CoU^e. I have now many of the notes he made for me at that 
time, and I shall always remember the painstaking way in which 
he drew the battle-fields, and explained how ''one commander 
came up in this position at just the right moment and saved 
the day," or how the lack of preparedness ruined many a coura- 
geous adventure. These quiet hours come back to me with a 
rush of recollection as I write, and I am proud to think that 
he fdt it was worth while to give me such instruction. Once 
I said to him: ''How can you do this, Theodore; how can you 
take the time to study for these lectures?" "Oh!" he said, 
"I do not have to study; I could not, of course, give quite as 
much time as that. You see, I just happen to know my Ameri- 
can history." He certainly did "happen to know" his Ameri- 
can history, as was proved in many a controversy later in 
his life. His American history and, indeed, the history of al- 
most every other country of the world were all at his finger-tips. 
During his civil service commissionership, a period of a 
number of years, the letters were few and far between, but I 
have one dated July 28, 1889, in which he writes: "Struggle 
as I wiU, my life seems to grow more and more sedentary, and 
as for my polo, it is one of the things that has been; witness 
the enclosed check which is for Cranford, and I am trying to 
sell Diamond too; — ^how I hate to give it up! We have had 
lovely days this summer, however, at Sagamore. I took all the 
children down on the pond once, and made them walk out on a 
half-sunken log, where they perched like so many sand-snipes. I 
am leaving for the West soon to have a whack at the bears in 
the Rockies; I am so out of training that I look forward with 
acute physical terror to going up the first mountain. [He seems 



The Young Reformer 133 

for the moment to have forgotten that his life was growing veiy 
'^sedentary/'] I have mortaUy hated being so much away 
from home this summer, but I am very glad I took the place 
[dvil service commissionership] and I have really enjoyed my 
work. I fed it incumbent on me to try to amount to some- 
thing, either in politics or literature because I have deliberately 
given up the idea of going into a money-making business. Of 
course, however, my political life is but an interlude — ^it is quite 
impossible to continue long to do much between two sets of such 
kittle-kattle as the spoilsmen and the mugwumps." 

The seed of the birth of the Progressive party of 1912 was 
sown by that feeling of Theodore Roosevelt of the difficulty to 
do much ^'between two sets such as the spoilsmen and the mug- 
wumps." The honest effort to play honest politics for honest 
purposes and practical ideals was the stimulating idea trans- 
lated into action in that great attempt for better government 
called the Progressive party; but this letter of the young Civil 
Service Commissioner was written in 1889, and it was not until 
twenty-three years later that the seed fructified into a move- 
ment which, had it succeeded, would, I verily beUeve, have 
changed the fate of the world. 

But to return to the Civil Service Commission. He gave 
faithful effort and all his intelligence to the improvement of 
that important service, and often had the sensation, which he 
was doomed to have in so many of his positions, that he was 
more or less beating his head against the wall. He sent me at 
that time a copy of a letter to the Civil Service Commissioners 
from an applicant who had been summoned to an examination 
and had not appeared. To show the ignorance of some of the 
applicants, I cannot resist quoting from the letter. 

Alabama Mobile October 6, 1890. 

To the Comishers of Siv4 Serves ^ 

My dear brothers: I am very sorry that I could not Meet 
you on the day you said but gentlemen, i am glad of the cause 



134 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

that kept me away. Let me tell you Mr. Comisher, i hav bin 
maid five years ante! the Other Da me and my wife hav bin 
the onley mbrs en ow Famly. Well Sir on the Da before youie 
examnenashun My Wife Had a Kupple ov tuins, gest think of 
it, Mr. Comischer — and of course i couddnt go off and Leave 
her and them, i just staid home and we had a sellabration — 
and i invited all my friends to dinner, i wish you had been 
thare. i Hope i can be thare next time Mr. Comischer. 

Very truly yours. 

I remember my brother saying humorously that, after all, 
that particular gentleman might just as well have stayed away 
with his ^^tuins" and "sellabration," as he really doubted 
whether he could have passed the " examnenashun" had he 
appeared! 



VI 

THE ELEHORN RANCH AND NEAR-ROUGHING 

IT IN YELLOWSTONE PARK 

Fram the cloistered life of American college boys, sheltered from 
the ruder currents of the world by the ramparts of wealth and gentle 
nurture, he passed, still very young, to the wild and free existence of 
the plahis and the hills. In the silence of those vast solitudes men 
grow to full stature, when the original stu£F is good. He came back 
to the East, bringing with him, as Tennyson sang, ''The wrestling 
thews that throw the world." — ^From a speech by John Hay. 

O lover of the things God mad^^ 
Hill, valley, mountain, plain: 
The li^tning from the darkened cloud. 
The storm-burst with its rain. 

— ^Roosevelt, ''Hymn of Molokai." 

MY brother has written so much about his own ranch, 
and has given so vivid a description in his autobiog- 
raphy of the life led there, of the wonderful stretches 
of the Bad Lands, of the swaying cottonwood-trees, and the big 
fireplace in the Elkhom Ranch sitting-room, around which he 
and his fellow ranchers gathered, exhausted by a long day's 
cattle-herding or deer-hunting, that it hardly seems posable 
that I can add much to the picture already painted by his own 
facile hand: ranch life, however, viewed from the standpoint 
of the outsider or from that of the insider has a different quality, 
and thus no reminiscences of mine would be in any way com- 
plete were I not to describe my first delightful visit paid to Me- 
dora, Dakota, and the surrounding country, in 1890. Our party 
consisted of my brother and sister-in-law, my sister Mrs. Cowles, 
then Aima Roosevelt, our friend Robert Munro Ferguson, my 

13s 



136 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

husband and myself, and young George Cabot Lodge. The 
latter was the sixteen-year-old son of our valued friend Senator 
Henry Cabot Lodge, and was truly the ''gifted son of a gifted 
father/' for later he was not only to earn fame as a poet, well 
known to his countrymen, but in his brief life — ^f or alas ! he died 
in the summer of 1909 — his talents were recognized in other 
lands as well. 

I had been prepared by many tales for the charm and free- 
dom and informal ease of life in the Bad Lands, and had often 
dreamed of going there; but, unlike most dreams, this one came 
true in an even more enchanting fashion than I had dared hope. 
Many had been the letters that my brother had written to me 
from Elkhom Ranch several years previous to our journey. Li 
June, 1886, he wrote: ''I have never once had breakfast as late 
as four o'clock. Have been in the saddle all day, and have 
worked like a beaver, and am as rugged and happy as possible. 
While I do not see any very great future ahead, yet, if things 
go on as they are now going and have gone for the past three 
years, I think that each year I will net enough money to pay 
a good interest on the capital, and yet be adding slowly to my 
herd all the time. I think I have more than my capital on the 
ground, and this year I ought to be able to sell between two and 
three hundred head of steer and dry stock. I wish I could see 
all of you, but I certainly do enjoy the life. The other day while 
dining at the de Mores I had some cherries, the only fruit I have 
had since I left New York. I have lived pretty touchy." 

I quote the above simply to show, what is not always under- 
stood, that my brother's ranching venture was, from his stand- 
point, a perfectly just business enterprise, and, had not the ex- 
traordinarily severe winters intervened, his capital would not 
have been impaired. Writing that same summer, shortly after 
hearing of the birth of my baby girl, he says in his loving way: 

''My own darling Pussie, my sweetest little sbter: How can 
I tell you the joy I felt when I received Douglas' first telegram; 
but I had not the heart to write you until I received the sec- 



The Elkhom Ranch 137 

ond the good old boy sent me, and knew you were all right. 
Just to think of there bdng a second wee, new Pussie in this 
big world I How I shall love to pet and prize the little thing I 
It will be very, veiy dear to Unde Teddy's heart, which is 
quite large enough, however, not to lose an atom of affection 
for Teddy Douglas, the blessed little scamp. I have thought 
of you all the time for the last few weeks, and you can hardly 
imagine how overjoyed and relieved I felt, my own darling sister. 
I hope the little new Pussie wiU grow up like her dear mother, 
and that she will have many many loving ones as fond of her 
as her irrelevant old cowboy unde is of Pussie, Senior. Will 
you be veiy much offended if I ask whether she now looks like 
a little sparsdy-haired, pink polyp? My own offering, when 
in tender youth, dosdy resembled a trilobite of pulpy consis- 
tency and shadowy outline. You dearest Pussie, — you know 
I am just teasing you, and how proud and fond I am of the lit- 
tle thing even when I have never seen it I wish I was where 
I could shake old Douglas by the hand and kiss you again 
and again. 

"Today I went down to Dickerman to make the Fourth of 
July speech to a great crowd of cowboys and rangers, and after, 
stayed to see the horse races between the cowboys and Indians." 

In another letter about the same time: ''If I was not afraid 
of being put down as cold-blooded, I should say that I honestly 
miss greatly and all the time, and think lovingly of all you dear 
ones, yet I really enjoy this life. I have managed to combine 
an outdoor life possessing much variety and ezdtement, and 
now and then a little adventure, with a literary life also. Three 
out of four days I spend the morning and evening in the Ranch 
house writing, and working at various pieces of writing I have 
now on hand. They may come to nothing, however; but on 
the other hand they may succeed; at any rate, I am doing some 
honest work whatever the result is and I am really pretty phil- 
osophical about success or failure now. It often amuses me 
when I indirectly hear that I am supposed to be harboring secret 



138 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

and bitter legjxt for my political career, when, as a matter of 
fact, I have hardly ever^ when alone, given two thoughts to it 
since it closed, and have been quite as much wrapped up in hunt- 
ing, randung, and book-making as I ever was in Politics. Give 
my best love to wee Teddy and dear old Douglas; do you know, 
I have an excessively warm feeling for your respected spouse. 
I have always admired Truth, Lo}raIty, and Courage; and 
though I am really having a lovely life, just the life I care for, 
please be sure that I am always thinking of my own, darling 
sister, whom I love so much and so tenderly. Ever your affec<- 
tionate brother, Thee/^ 

On August 7 of the same year he wrote again after having 
paid a hnd visit to the East, and returned to Dakota: '^Blessed 
Httle Pussie; Mother of an increasing and vocal Israel, I did 
enjoy my two visits to my dear sister, and that dear old piece 
of peripatetic bric-i-brac, her Caledonian spouse. Everything 
here is much as usuaL The boys were, as always, genuinely 
glad to see me. I am greatly attached to the Ranch and the 
life out here, and am really fond of the men. It is in many ways 
ideal; we are so very rarely able to, actually and in real life, 
dwell in our ideal 'hero land.' The loneliness and freedom, and 
the j^alf-adventurous nature of existence out here, appeals to 
me very powerfully. • » » Merrifield and I are now busily plan- 
ning our hunt in the mountains/' 

Such letters as the above filled the members of his family 
with a strong desire to participate to some degree, at least, in 
the life which he loved so dearly; but the births of various small 
members of the family rendered such participation impossible 
until the late summer of 1890. 

After a brief visit to St. Paul, Mian., we took train for Me- 
dora. My brother had heralded the fact that I (then a young 
woman of twenty-eig^t) was a mighty rider (I had followed the 
Essex County hounds in New Jersey) I And the cowbo)rs were 
quite sure, I think, that I would leap from the locomotive to 
the back of a bucking bronco. Our train drew up, or I should 



The Elkhom Ranch 139 

say, approximately drew up, to the little station at Medora at 
four o'clock in the morning, in one of the most frightful storms 
that I ever remember. Rain fell in torrents, and we had to 
get out on an embankment composed of such dippeiy mud that 
before we actually plodded to the station, our feet and l^gs were 
encased in glutinous slime; but the calls of the cowboys un- 
dauntedly rang out in the darkness, and the neighing of horses 
and prancing of hoofs made us realize that civilization as well 
as convention was a thing of the past Will Merrifield, the 
superintendent of Elkhom Ranch, and Sylvane Ferris, his able 
lieutenant, fully expected me to moimt the extremely dangerous- 
looking littie animal which they held by a loose rope, and they 
were inordinately disappointed when I pleaded the fatigue of 
two nights on the train, and bagged that I might drive with the 
other less-adventurous ladies to the ranch-house, forty miles 
away. Before starting on this long trip we were entertained 
by Joe Ferris, the brother of Sylvane, who having once also been 
one of Theodore's cowbo)rs, had now decided upon a more sober 
type of life as storekeeper in the littie town of Medora. Joe 
and his wife were most hospitable^ and above his shop in thdr 
own rooms we were given a nice warm breakfast and an equally 
warm welcome. After breakfast, we came down to the shop, 
where our luggage had already been gathered, and there we 
began to sort what we would take to the Ranch and what we 
would leave. This required a certain amoimt of packing and 
unpacking, and I was on my knees ''madly thrusting," as ''Alice 
in Wonderland" puts it, "a right-hand foot into a left-hand 
shoe" when Joe came up to me and said: "Mrs. Douglas (they 
all decided to call me Mrs. Douglas, as more informal than Mrs. 
Robinson), it ain't worth while for you to tire yourself like that 
when the best packer in all Dakota is standin' in the doorway." 
I looked up and sure enough a huge man, who mig^t have just 
walked out of one of Bret Harte's novels, was "standin' in the 
doorway." "There he is," contmued Joe; "that's Hell-Roarin' 
Bill, the sheriff of the county; you heard tell of how he caught 



140 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

that lunatic; well. Bill's the best ladies' packer that ever ^as, 
and you had better leave all your bags to hun to arrange." Fear- 
ing that '^Bin" might be offended if I did not use him in the 
capacity of a French maid, and having frequently been told 
of the rapid results of hurt feelings on the part of ''Bill/' 
I suavely called him to my side, and telling him of the wonder- 
ful reputation which I had heard he enjoyed, I immediately 
put my wardrobe in his care, and to my infinite surprise the huge 
backwoodsman measured up to his reputation. Very soon the 
cavalcade was ready, the rain had ceased to fall in such torrents, 
the half-misty quality in the air lent a softer beauty to the arid 
landscape, and a sense of adventure was the finishing touch to 
our expectations as we started for Elkhom Ranch. My dis- 
appointed friends, Merrifield and Sylvane, said that ''th^ did 
not believe that Mrs. Douglas would like drivin' with a 'shot- 
gun team' much better than ridin' a buckin' bronco, but, of 
course, if she thougfU she wanted to go that way, she could." 
An hour later "Mrs. Douglas" somewhat regretted her choice 
of progression; true enough, it was a shotgun team attached to 
that springless wagon in which we sat I The horses had never 
been hitched up together before, and their methods of motion 
were entirely at odds. The cowboy driver, however, managed 
eventually to get them started, and from that moment our prog- 
ress, though irrelevant, was rapid beyond words. 

We forded the "Little Missouri" River twenty-three times 
on the way to the ranch-house, and as the banks of the river 
were extremely steep, it was always a question as to whether 
we could go fast enough down one bank to get sufficient impetus 
to enable us to go through the river and up the very steq> 
bank on the other side; so that either coming or going we were 
in imminent danger of a complete somersault. However, we did 
accomplish that long, exhausting, ^ringless drive, and gradually 
the buttes rose hi^er and higher around us, the strange forma- 
tion of the Bad Lands, curious in color, became more and more 
marked, the cottonwood-trees more plentiful as the river broad- 



The Elkhorn Ranch 141 

ened out, and suddenly we saw buried amidst the trees on the 
farther side of one of our fordings the substantially built, cosey- 
looking house called by my brother the Elkhorn Ranch. 

In a letter written to my aunt, Mrs. Grade, from the ranch- 
house I say: 

''We are having the most delightful time at the Ranch. 
The little house is most cosey and comfortable, and Mrs. Mer- 
rifield had everything so neat and sweet for us, and as she has 
a girl to help her, we really do not have to roug^ it at all. 
We all make our beds and do up our rooms religiously, but even 
that th^ would willingly do for us if we would let them. We 
have had three cloudless days, the first of which was occupied 
in driving the forty miles down here, and a beautiful pictur- 
esque drive it is, winding in and out through these strange, 
bold Buttes, crossing the 'Little Missouri' twenty-three times I 
We ladies drove, but the men all rode, and very picturesque 
they looked filing across the river. We arrived at the Ranch 
house at twelve o'clock and ate a splendid dinner of Mrs. Merri- 
field's prq>aring, immediately after which we climbed up a Butte 
and walked to Prairie Dog town and saw the little prairie dogs. 
We then mounted horses and took a lovely ride, so you may 
imagine that we slept well. 

"The next day we were all on horseback soon after break- 
fast, Ferris and Merrifield with us, and off we rode; this time 
with the intention of seeing Merrifield lasso a steer. When we 
came to a great bunch of cattle, the practised eyes of the two 
men at once discovered an unbranded heifer, which they imme- 
diately decided to lasso and brand. It was very exciting. Merri- 
field threw the rope, cleverly catching its 1^, and then threw 
the heifer, which was ahnost the size of a cow, and then Ferris 
tied another rope around its neck. The ends of the ropes were 
slipped over the pommek of two ponies who, in the most sensible 
way, held the heifer while the two men built a Uttle fire 
and heated the dnch ring with which they branded the creature. 
It was all intensely picturesque. In the afternoon, we again 



142 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

rode out to be with the men while they drove the deer on the 
bottom, and Merrifield shot one; so you see, we haye had very 
typical experiences, especially at the round-up yesterday.'' 

Happy days, indeed, they were, full of varied excitements. 
Merrifidd's little boy, Frank, only eleven years old, was the 
chief factor in finding the herd of ponies in the morning, for it 
was the custom to let them loose after twilight. Many and many 
a time I would hear him unslip the halter of the one small pony 
C'Little Moke'' by name) which was still tied to the ranch* 
house steps and on which he would leap in the early dawn to 
go to round up the ponies for the da}r's work. I would jump 
up and look out of the ranch window, and see the independent 
little fellow fording the river, starting on his quest, and an hour 
or so later the flashing of many feet in the water heralded the 
i^proach of '^little Moke," his young rider, and the whole bundi 
of four-legged friends. 

The relationship between my brother and his men was one 
of honest comradeship but of absolute respect, each for the other, 
and on the part of the cowboys there was, as well, toward their 
''Boss," a certain reverential attitude in spite of the ''man to 
man" equality. How I bved that first night that we sat around 
the fire, when the men, in thdr effort to give my brother all the 
news of the vidnitylduring his absence, told the type of talewhich 
has had its equivalent only in Owen Wister's "The Viigjnian." 
"There is a sky-pilot a good many miles from here, Mr. Roose- 
velt," said Sylvane, "who's bringin' a suit against you." Syl- 
vane announced this unpleasant fact with careless gaiety, stretch- 
ing his long legs toward the fire. No one was ever so typically 
the ideal cowboy of one's wildest fancy as was Sylvane Ferris. 
Tall and slender, with strong fair hair and blue eyes of an ahnost 
unnatural clearness, and a splendid broad brow and aquiline 
nose, Sylvane looked the part "His leather chaps, his broad 
sombrero hat, his red handkerchief knotted carelessly around 
his strong, young, sunburned throat, all made him such a pic- 
ture that one's eye invariably foUowed him as he rode a vicious 



The Elkhom Ranch 143 

pony, "wrastled" a calf, roped a steer, or branded a heifer; but 
DOW atting laaly by the fire, such activities seemed a thing of 
the past, and Sylvane was ready for an hour's gossip. 

"A sky-pilot? Why should a sky-pilot bring suit against 
me?" said my brother laughingly. [Li telling this story he 
sometimes referred to this man as a professor.] 

''Wen/' said Sylvane, ''it was this way, Mr. Roosevelt Yoiu 
see, we was all outside the ranch door when up drives the sky- 
pilot in a buggy. He was one of them wanderin' ones that 
thought he could preach as he wandered, and just about as he 
drove up in front of our ranch his horse went dead lame on him 
and his old buggy just fell to pieces. He was in a bad fix, and 
he said he knew you never would let him be held up like that, 
because he had heard you was a good man too, and wouldn't 
we lend him a horse, or send him with the team to the next place 
he was going to, some forty miles away. We felt we had to 
be hospitable-like, with you so far away and the sky-pilot in 
such a fix, so we said 'Yes,' we would send him to where he 
wanted to go, and there he is now, lyin' in a hut with one 1^ 
broken and one ann nearly wrenched off his body, and he's 
bringin' suit against you, which ain't really fair, we think." 

"What do you mean, Sylvane; what have I got to do with 
his broken 1^ and aim?" said my brother, beginning to feel 
a trifle nervous. 

"Well, you see, it is this way," said Sylvane; "he says we 
sent him to where he is with a runaway team and he was thrown 
out and broken up in pieces-like; but we says how could that 
team we sent him with be a runaway team — ^how could a team 
be called a runaway team when one of the horses ain't never 
been hitched up before, and the other ain't run away not more'n 
two or three times; but I guess sky-pilots are always unrea- 
sonable I" 

This conclusion seemed to satisfy Sylvane entirely; the un- 
fortunate condition of the much-battered sky-pilot aroused 
xx> sympathy in his adamantine heart, nor did he feel that the 



144 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

sky-pilot had the slightest cause for his suit, which later was 
settled in a satisfactory manner, but the conversation was typical 
of that evening's ranch news by the big wood-fire. 

Our day at the round-up was one of the most fascinating 
days of my life, and I was proud to see that my dty-bred brother 
was as agile and as active in the duties of rounding up the great 
steers of the plains as were the men brought up from their baby- 
hood to such activities. We lunched at midday with the round- 
up wagon; rough life, indeed, but wonderfully invigorating, 
and as we returned in the evening, galloping over the grassy 
plateaus of the high buttes, I realized fully that the bridle-path 
would never again have for me the charm it once had had. 
Nothing in the way of riding has ever been so enchanting, and 
the curious fonnation of the Bad Lands, picturesque, indeed, 
ahnost grotesque in line, in conjunction with the wonderful 
climate of that period of the year and the mingling of tints in 
the sunset sky, resulted in a quality of color and atmosphere 
the like of which I only remember in Egypt, and made as last- 
ing an impression upon my memory as did the land of the Nile. 

During our stay, my oiiginal failure to leap, on my arrival, 
''from the locomotive to the back of a bucking bronco" had 
more or less been effaced from the memory of the cowbojrs by 
subsequent adventures, and the last day that we spent under 
the cottonwood-trees, by the banks of the Little Missouri, was 
made significant by the ''suiprise" gotten up by Merrifidd and 
Sylvane for the special edification of my brother and husband* 
The suiprise took the form of the ''wrastling" of a caU by no 
less a person than myself I Merrifield had taught me to rope 
an animal, Sylvane had shown me with praiseworthy r^ularity 
the method of throwing a calf, and the great occasion was 
heralded amongst the other members of the party by an invi- 
tation to sit on the fence of the corral at three o'clock, the last 
afternoon of our visit to Elkhom, and thus witness the struggle 
between a young woman of the East and a bovine denizen of 
the Western prairies. The corral, a plot of very muddy ground 



The Elkhom Ranch 145 

(having been watered by a severe rain the njgfat before), was 
walled in by a f ence, and generally used when we wished to keep 
the ponies from straying. On this occasbn^ however, it was 
emptied of all (m/ the calf, which was to be the object of my ef- 
forts and prowess. I was then introduced by Merrifidd, very 
much as the circus rider used to be introduced in the early Bar- 
num and Bailey days ; then followed a most gruelling pantomimci 
the caU, which was of an unusually unpleasant size, galloped 
around the corral and I, knee-deep in mud, galloped after it, 
and finaUy succeeded in achieving the first necessity, which was 
to rope it around the neck. After that, the method of procedure 
was as follows: The ^^wrastler" — on this occasion my unfor- 
tunate self— was supposed to get dose enough to the animal 
in question to throw himself or herself across the hack of the 
galloping calf, with the purpose of catching the left 1^ of the 
animal, the leg, in fact, farthest away from one's right arm. If 
this deed could be accomplished and the 1^ forcibly bent under 
the calf, both caU and rider would go down in an inextricable 
heap, and the '^wrastUng" of the calf would be complete. 

I can fed now the mud in my boots as I floundered with 
agonized effort after that eneigetic animal. I can still sense 
the strain in every nerve of my body as I finally flung myself 
across its back, and still, also, as if it were only yesterday, do 
I remember the jellied sensation within me, as for some tortur- 
ing minutes I lay across the heifer's spine, before, by a final Her- 
culean effort, I caught that left 1^ with my right ann. The 
cries of "stay with him !" from the fence, the loud hand-clq)ping 
of the enthusiastic cowboys, the shrieks of laughter of my brother 
and my husband, all still ring in my ears, and when the deed 
was finally accomplished, when the calf, with one terrible lurch, 
actually ''wrastled," so to speak, fell over on its head in the 
mud, all sensation left me and I only remember being lifted up, 
bruised and encased in an armor of oozing dirt, and being carried 
triumphantly on the shoulders of the cowboys into the ranch- 
house, having redeemed, in their opinu>n| at least, the reputa- 



146 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

tion which my brother had given me before I visited the Bad 
Lands. 

Years later, when the young owner of Elkhom Ranch had 
reached the higher estate of President of the United States, I, 
as the sister of the President, was receiving with my sister-in- 
law at the breakfast in the White House, at his Inaugural in 1905, 
and was attired in my best black velvet gown and ^'presidential 
sister" white plumes; I was surrounded by senators and am- 
bassadors, lAiea suddenly, coming toward me, I recognized the 
lithe figure of my brother's quondam cowboy. Will Merrifield. 
He, too, had climbed the rungs of the ladder of fame, and now, 
as marshal of Montana, he had been intrusted by the State of 
Montana with the greetings of that state for the newly inaugu- 
rated President Gnning toward me with a gay smile of recogni- 
tion, he shook me warmly by the hand and said: ''Well, now, 
Mrs. Douglas, it's a sight for sore eyes to see you again; why, 
almost the last time I laid eyes on you, you were standing on 
your head in that muddy corral with your legs waving in the 
air." Senators and ambassadors seemed somewhat surprised, 
but Will Merrifield and the President's sister shook hands gaily 
together, and reminisced over one of the latter's most thrilling 
life victories. But to return to our farewell to Elkhom Ranch 
in 1890. 

The three weeks' visit to the ranch-house had passed on 
fleet wings, and it was a very sad little party that turned its 
face toward Medora again, in preparation for the specially 
planned trip to Yellowstone Park. Theodore Roosevelt, as one 
may well imagine, was making a very real concession to family 
affection by arranging this trip for us and accompanying us 
upon it. What he loved was roughing it; near-roughing it was 
not his ''metier," nor, frankly, was it his ''m£tier" to arrange 
a camfofiabk trip of any kind: He loved wild places and wild 
companions, hard tramps and thrilling adventure, and to be a 
part of the type of trip which women who were not accustomed 



The Elkhom Ranch 147 

to actual hunting could take, was really ^m act of unselfishness 
on his part. We paid huge sums for no comforts, and althou^ 
supposed to go — ^as we were riding — ^where the ordinary trav- 
ellers in stage-coach could not go in Yellowstone Park, yet there 
were times when we seemed to be constantly camping in the 
vicinity of tomato cans ! 

I write agab to my aimt two weeks after we start our Yellow- 
stone experiences: 

''We have had a most delightful two weeks' camping and 
have enjoyed every moment. The weather has been cloudless, 
and though the nights were cold, we were only really uncomfort- 
able one night. We were all in the best of health and the best of 
spirits, and ate without a muimur the strange meals of ham, 
tomatoes, greasy cakes and coffee prepared by our irresistible 
Chinese cook. Breakfast and dinner were always the same, and 
lunch was generally bread and cheese carried in our pockets 
and eaten by the wayside. We have really had great comfort, 
however, and have enjoyed the pretense of roughing it and the 
delicious, free, open-air life hugely, — and such scenery ! Noth- 
ing in my estimation can equal in unique beauty the Yellow- 
stone canyon, the wonderful shapes of the rocks, some Hke 
peaks and turrets, others broken in strange fantastic jags, and 
then the marvellous colors of them all. Pale greens and yellows, 
vivid reds and orange, salmon pinks and every shade of brown 
are strewn with a lavish hand over the whole Canyon, — and 
the beautiful Falls are so foamy and white, and leap with such 
exultation from their rocky ledge 360 feet down. 

''We had one really exciting ride. We had undertaken too 
long an expedition, namely, the ascent of Mt. Washburn, and 
then to Towers' Falls in one day, during which, to add to the 
complications, Edith had been thrown and quite badly bruised. 
We found ourselves at Towers' Falls at six o'clock in the eve- 
ning instead of at lunch time, and realized we were still sixteen 
miles from Camp, and a narrow trail only to lead us back, a 
trail of which our guide was not perfectly sure. We galloped 



148 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

as long as there was light, but the sun soon set over the wonder- 
ful mountains, and although there was a little crescent moon, 
still, it soon grew very dark and we had to keep close behind 
each other, single file, and go very carefully as the trail lay along 
the mountainside. Often we had to traverse dark woods and 
trust entirely to the horses, who behaved beautifully and stepped 
carefully over the fallen logs. Twice, Dodge, our guide, lost the 
trail, and it gave one a very eerie feeling, but he found it again 
and on we went. Once at about 11 p. m., Theodore suggested 
stopping and making a great fire, and waiting until daylight 
to go on, for he was afraid that we would be tired out, but we 
all preferred to continue, and about 11:30, to our great joy, we 
heard the roar of the Falls and suddenly came out on the deq> 
Canyon, looking very wonderful and mysterious in the dim star- 
light We reached our Camp after twelve o'clock, having been 
fifteen hours away from it, thirteen and a half of which we had 
been in the saddle. It was really an escperience." 

It was a hazardous ride and I did not terrify my aimt by 
some of the incidents such as the severe discomfort suffered by 
Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt when she was thrown and narrowly 
escaped a broken back, and when a few hours later my own horse 
sank in a quicksand and barely recovered himself in time to 
struggle to terra firma again, not to mention the dangers of the 
utter darkness when the small, dim crescent moon faded from 
the horizon. My brother was the real leader of the cavalcade, 
for the guide, Ira Dodge, proved singularly incompetent. Theo- 
dore kept up our flagging spirits, exhausted as we were by the 
long rough day in the saddle, and although furious with Dodge 
because of his ignorance of the trail through which he was sup- 
posed to guide us, he still gave us the sense of confidence, which 
is one's only hope on such an adventure. Looking back over 
that camping trip in the Yellowstone, the prominent figure of 
the whole holiday was, of course, my brother. He was a boy 
in his tridcs and teasing, crawling under the tent flaps at night, 
pretending to be the unexpected bear which we always dreaded. 



The Elkhom Ranch 149 

He was a real inspiration in his knowledge of the fauna and birds 
of the vidnity and his willingness to give us the benefit of that 
knowledge. 

I find in my diary of that excursion a catalogue of the birds 
and other animals which he himself had pointed out to me, mak- 
ing me marvel again at the rapid observation which he had made 
part of his physical equivalent I note: '^ During the first four 
days we have been in the Park, we have seen chipmunk, red 
squirrel, little black bear, elk watering with the horses, musk- 
rat in the streams, golden eagle. Peregrine falcon and other varie- 
ties, red-tailed hawk and pigeon hawk, Clark's crow, Canada 
jay, raven, bittern, Canada goose, mallard and teal dudes, chica- 
dee, nuthatch, dwarf-thrush, robin, water oozd, sunbird, long- 
spur, grass finch, yellow-crowned warbler. Rocky Mountain 
white-throated sparrow, song-sparrow, and wren." 

Each one of the above I saw with the eyes of Theodore Roose- 
velt, and can still hear the tones of his voice as he described to 
me their habits of life and the differences between them and 
others of their kind. To him this trip must, of necessity, have 
been somewhat dull, based as it was upon the companionship 
of three women who were not hunters; but never once during 
those weeks did he seem anything but happy, and as far as we 
were concerned, to see the beauties of nature through those ar- 
dent eyes, to hear the bird-notes through those ears, attuned to 
each song, and to listen constantly to his stories of wood and 
plain, his interpretation of the lives of those mighty pioneer 
men of the West — all of this comes back to me, as a rare experi- 
ence which I have gladly stored away in what Emerson calls 
^'the amber of memory." How we laughed over the strange 
rules and regulations of the park I Fierce bears were trapped, 
but could not be killed without the kind permission of one of 
the secretaries in Washington, the correspondence on the sub- 
ject affording my brother infinite amusement. His methods 
under Uke circumstances would have been so very different I 

The e]^>eriences at Elkhom Ranch and again in the Yellow- 



150 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

stone Park were of special benefit to me from the standpoint 
of the comprehension which they gave me of the absolute sym- 
pathy which my brother felt both with the nature and the human 
nature of the great West. No period of the life of Theodore 
Roosevelt seems to me quite as important, in the influence which 
it was to bear upon his future usefulness to his country, as was 
that period in which, as man to man, he shared the vigorous 
work and pastimes of the men of that part of our country. Had 
he not actually lived the life not only of the hunter and cattle- 
man, but had he not taken actual part as sheriff in the methods 
of government of that part of our country, he would never have 
been able to interpret the spirit of the West as he did* Hewould 
never have been recognized as such an inteipreter, and when 
the time came that America could no longer look from an unin- 
terested distance at the Spanish iniquities in Cuba, the fact that 
Theodore Roosevelt had become so prominent a figure in the 
West proved the essential factor in the flocking to his standard 
of that mass of virile manhood which, under his leadership, and 
that of the then army doctor, Leonard Wood, became the pic- 
turesque, well-known ''Rough Rider'' Volimteer Cavalry of 
the Spanish-American War. 

At Elkhom Ranch, also, the long silences and stretches of 
solitude had much to do with the mental growth of the young 
man. There he read and wrote and thought deeply. His old 
guide Bill Sewall was asked not long since about his opinion of 
my brother as a religious man. His answer was as follows: ''I 
think he read the Bible a great deal. I never saw him in formal 
prayer, but as prayer is the desire of the heart, I tlunk he prayed 
without ceasing, for the desire of his heart was alwajrs to do 
light. '' Thus, sharing the hardshq>s and the joys^f their primi- 
tive life with his comrades of the West, the young rancher be- 
came an integral part of that country, which never failed to 
rouse in him the spirit of high adventure and romance. 

Theodore Roosevelt, himself, in a letter to John Hay, written 
long after our visit to his ranch and our gay excursion to the 



The Elkhom Ranch 151 

Yellowstone^ describes the men of that port of the world. He 
^v^as taking an extended trip, as President, in 1903, on the first 
part of which journey Mr. Hay had accompanied him, and at 
Oyster Bay, on his return, he writes to his secretary of state 
in order to ^ve him further details of the trip: 

'^From Washington, I turned southward, and when I strud^ 
northern Montana, again came to my old stamping grounds 
and among my old friends. I met all kinds of queer characters 
with whom I had hunted and worked and slq>t and sometimes 
fought. From Helena, I went southward to Butte, reaching 
that dty in the afternoon of May 37th. By this time, Seth Bui* 
lock had joined us, together with an oU hunting friend, John 
Willis, a Donatello of the Rocky Mountains,— wholly lacking, 
however, in that morbid self-consciousness which made Haw- 
thorne's 'faun' go out of his head because he had killed a man. 
Willis and I had been in Butte some seventeen years before, 
at the end of a hunting tnp in which we got dead broke, so that 
when we struck Butte, we sl^t in an outhouse and breakfasted 
heartily in a two-bit Chinese restaurant. Since then I had gpne 
through Butte in the campaign of 1900, the major part of the 
inhabitants receiving me with frank hostility, and enthusiastic 
cheers for Bryan. 

''However, Butte is mercurial, and its feelings had changed. 
The wicked, wealthy, hospitable, full-blooded, little dty, wel- 
comed me with wild enthusiasm of a disorderly kind. The 
mayor, Pat Mullins, was a huge, good-humored creature, wear- 
ing, for the first time in his life, a top hat and a frock coat, the 
better to do honor to the President 

"National party lines counted very little in Butte where 
the fight was Heinze and anti-Heinze, Ex-Senator Carter and 
Senator Clark being in the opposition. Ndther side was willing 
to let the other have anything to do with the cdebration, and 
they drove me wild with thdr appeals, until I settled that the 
afternoon parade and speech was to be managed by the Heinze 
group of people, and the evening speech by the anti-Heinze 



152 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

people; and that the dinner should contain fifty of each faction 
and should be presided over in his official capacity by the mayor. 
The ordinary procession, in barouches, was rather more ex- 
hilarating than usual, and reduced the faithful secret service 
men very nearly to the condition of Bedlamites. The crowd 
was filled with whooping enthusiasm and every kind of whiskey, 
and in their desire to be sociable, broke the Hues and jammed 
right up to the carriage. . . • Seth Bullock, riding dose beside 
the rear wheel of my carriage, for there were hosts of so-called 
'rednecks' or 'dynamiters' in the crowd, was such a splendid 
looking fellow with his size and supple strength, his strangely 
marked aquiline face, with its big moustache, and the broad brim 
of his soft dark hat drawn down over his dark eyes. However, 
no one made a motion to attack me. • • . 

''My address was felt to be honor enough for one hotel, so 
the dinner was given in the other. When the dinner was an- 
nounced, the Mayor led me in! — ^to speak more accurately, 
tucked me under one arm and lifted me partially off the groimd 
so that I felt as if I looked like oneof those limp dolls with dan- 
gling legs, carried around by small children, like Mary Jane in 
the ' Gollywogs,' for instance. As soon as we got in the banquet 
hall and sat at the end of the table, the Mayor hammered lustily 
with the handle of his knife and announced, 'Waiter, bring on 
the feed.' Then, in a spirit of pure kindliness, 'Waiter, pull 
up the curtains and let the people see the President eat'; — ^but 
to this, I objected. The dinner was soon in full swing, and it 
was interesting in many respects. Besides my own party, in- 
cluding Seth Bullock and Willis, there were fifty men from each 
of the Butte factions. 

'^ In Butte, every prominent man is a millionaire, a gambler, 
or a labor leader, and generally he has been all three. Of the 
hundred men who were my hosts, I suppose at least half had 
killed their man in private war or had striven to compass the 
assassination of an enemy. They had fought one another with 
reckless ferodty. Th^ had been allies and enemies in every 



The Elkhom Ranch 153 

kind of buamess scheme, and companions in brutal reveby. As 
they diank great goblets of wine, the sweat glistened on their 
hard, strong, crafty faces* They looked as if they had come out 
of the pictures in Aubr^ Beardsley's Yellow Book. The mil- 
lionaires had been laboring men once, the labor leaders intended 
to be millionaires in thdr turn, or else to pull down all who were. 
They had made money in mines, had spent it on the races, in 
other mines or in gambling and evezy form of vidous luxury, 
but they were strong men for all that. They had worked, and 
striven, and pushed, and trampled, and had always been ready, 
and were ready now, to fight to the death in many different kinds 
of conflicts. They had built up their part of the West, they 
were men with whom one had to reckon if thrown in contact 
with them. • • • But though most of them hated each other, 
they were accustomed to take their pleasure when they could 
get it, and they took it fast and hard with the meats and wines." 

The above description by the pen of my brother is the most 
vivid that could be given of a certain type of man of the West. 
The types were many. . . . The Sylvane Ferrises and the Will 
Merrifidds were as bold and resourceful as these inhabitants of 
the dty of Butte and its vicinity, but for the former, life was 
an adventure in which the spirit of beauty and kindness had its 
share in happy contrast to the aims and objects of the men de- 
scribed by my brother in this extraordinary pen-picture. The 
picture is so forcibly painted that it brings bdore one's mind, 
almost as though it were an actual stage-setting, this type of 
American, who would appear to be a belated brother of the men 
of the barbaric period of the Middle Ages in the Old World, in 
their case, however, rendered even more formidable by a New 
World enteiprise and acumen, strangdy unlike what has ever 
been produced bdore. 

It was because of his knowledge of just such men, and of 
the fact that they knew, although his aims were so different and 
his ideals so alien to theirs, that the courage of his mental and 
physical equipment could meet them on their own ground, that 



154 ^y Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Theodore Roosevelt was respected and admired, although some- 
times hated, by this type of humanity so opposed to the goals, 
actual and spiritual, for which he worked so faithfully during 
his whole valiant existence. They knew him for what he was, 
and feared him for the qualities which he possessed in common 
with them, and even more for the traits that they did not under- 
stand, and which, to them, made him inevitably and forever 
''The Mysterious Stranger." 



vn 

TWO RECREANT NEW YORK POLICEMEN 

Who serves her truly, sometimes saves the state. 

— Arthur Hugh Clough. 

There is sprung up a light for the righteous; and joyful gladness 
for such as are true-hearted* — 97th Psalm. 

THE years between 1890 and 1896 were busy years, with 
devoted service as Qvil Service Commissioner, winters at 
Washington and hai^y summers at Oyster Bay, when 
Theodore Roosevelt gave himself up to family joy and the ac- 
tivities of the growing children. In 1893 ^^ writes most lov- 
ingly of my children and his— his never-falling sympathy in 
all the minor illnesses of my little family, expressed in the most 
affectionate terms, and the common sorrow which we both suf- 
fered in the loss of our devoted aunt, Mrs. James Grade, fills 
many pages during those years. We met frequently during 
the summer-time, and when we met he shared with me his many 
Washington experiences, but the letters are largely to show me 
his loving interest in the many details of my family life. 

In August, however, he goes a little more fully into some 
matters of public interest, and writes: 'Tor the last fortnight, 
I have virtually been living with Cabot, for I take all my meals 
at his house, though I sleep at my own. [Mrs. Roosevelt and 
the children were at Oyster Bay.] After breakfast, an hour 
spent by Cabot and myself in gloomy discussion over the folly 
of the Mug-wumps and the wickedness of the Democrats, I go 
to the oj£ce and work until four or five o'clock, most of my work 
taking the light but not alwa}rs agreeable shape of a succession 
of interviews of varying asperity with Congressmen.; then I 



156 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

go to gruff old Olney's and play tennis with him and any other 
stray statesman, diplomat or military personage whom he has 
captured for an hour or two. Sometimes, Cabot and I dine 
alone; more often, we have in one or two of our cronies such 
as Tom Reed or Senator Davis of Minnesota. • • • I think 
the tariff deadlock will break in a day or two, when I shall be 
left alone here with so much work on hand, however, that I fear 
I shall not get away until the end of the month, when I shall 
go back to Sagamore and Edith and the blessed bunnies." 

The intimacy with Senator Lodge, the charm of his library, 
where tradition and intellect always held sway, were amongst 
the most delightful associations that Washington gave to my 
brother during the many years spent there, both before the days 
of the White House and later under its roof. 

Late in August of that 3rear my brother Elliott died. My 
brother Theodore came to me at once and we did together the 
things always so hard to do connected with the death of those 
we love, and he writes me afterward: "The sadness has been 
tempered by something very sweet when I think of the way I 
was with you, my own darling sister." The quality of sharing, 
which, as I alwajrs say, was one of his most marked attributes, 
never showed more unselfishly than in times of sorrow. Almost 
immediately after the above letter, he encloses to me a clipping 
from the newspaper of Abingdon, Va., about my brother Elliott, 
who had lived there for some time in connection with the property 
of my husband in the Virginia mountains. No one, not even my 
brother Theodore himself, was ever more loved by those with 
whom he came in contact than was the "Ellie" of the early days 
in 20th Street, and later wherever he went he found rare and 
devoted friendship. The Virginian (the name of the Abingdon 
paper) says: 

"The New York papers announce the death of Mr. Elliott 
Roosevelt. This gentleman has been a member of this com- 
mimity for the past two years, and although his stay was so 
brief, it was long enough for him to make his impress as a whole- 



Two Recreant New York Policemen 157 

souledy genial gentleman, courteous and kind at all times, with 
an ever ready cheer for the enteiprising or help to the weak. 
His name was a byword among the needy, and his charities were 
always as abundant as they were unostentatious. He was public 
spirited and generous, this much we can truthfully say. His 
influence and his aid will be niissed, and more frequently than 
is generally known among those to whom it was a boon." 

After speaking of the enclosure, my brother continues: "My 
thoughts ]^eq> hovering around you, my darling sister, for I 
know how you loved Elliott; what a gallant, generous, manly 
boy he was. So many memories come back to me." 

In 1895 he had been appointed police commissioner, and 
was already in the thick of the hard fight to reform the Police 
Department He writes in August of that year: "Governor 
Hill and I have had two savage tilts. I have not the sli^test 
idea of the ultimate results of our move on the exdse question, 
but we have made a good fight against heavy odds." Perhaps, 
of all the pieces of work done by my brother, none stands out 
more dearly than the splendid achievement of remaking the 
Police Department into a fine working body, for which the whole 
dty of New York had the utmost respect, and on which it leaned 
for safety and protection. I have but few letters from him dur- 
ing that period, for, much to our delight, he was once more in 
our midst, and many and many a time would I go down to the 
old Vienna bakery on the comer of loth Street and Broadway, 
and he would come from Mulberry Street, where his office was, 
and together we would sit over the type of lunch he loved so 
well: dther bread and milk or a squab and cafi au lait. I can 
still see Senator Lodge's expression when he joined us on one 
of these simple occasions, and asked in a somewhat saturnine 
manner whether any one could get a respectable lunch at the 
place we loved so well ! What talks we had there over all the 
extraordinary situations that arose in the Police Dqiartment. 
There he described to me the ddidous humor of the parade 
inaugurated by the German brewer sodeties as a protest against 



158 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

his enforcement of the law. They were parading to show their 
disapproval of him, but at the last moment, as a wonderful piece 
of sarcasm, they decided to invite him to review the parade, 
hardly tKinlring that he would accept the invitation. Need- 
less to say, he did accept it, and leaning over from the platform 
where he had been invited to sit, he saw the mass of marching 
men carrying banners with ''Down with Teddy," and various 
other more unpleasant espletives. One company, as it passed 
the reviewing-stand, called out: ''Wo ist Teddy?'' "Hier bin 
ich," called out the police commissioner, leaning over the rail- 
ing and flashing his white teeth good-humoredly at the protest- 
ing crowd, who, unable to resist the sunshine of his personality, 
suddenly turned and, putting aside the disapproving banners, 
cheered him to the echo. 

It was during that same time, the story ran, that two recreant 
policemen who left their beats at an inopportune moment were 
called to the realization of their misdemeanor by coming face 
to face, in a glass window-case, with a set of false teeth which, 
they esplained, grinned at them with a ferocity so reminiscent 
of the strong molars of the police commissioner, that they almost 
fainted at the sUght, and hastily returned to their forsaken duties. 
Many and many a settlement-worker told me in those days that 
they could go anywhere in the most dangerous parts of the dty, 
during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, and the police 
were always on hand, always ready to protect those who needed 
their care. 

At that time also I was amused one day when he told me 
the story about his little Irish stenographer, a yoimg girl whose 
knowledge of orthography was less than her sympathetic in- 
terest in the affairs of the police commissioner I He took a 
warm interest in the nice young Irish girl, hard worker as she 
was, an important factor in the support of a large family of 
younger children, and could not bear to dismiss her from his 
service, in spite of her alarming mistakes in spelling. He said 
he always had to look over her manuscript and correct it in spite 



Two Recreant New York Policemen 159 

of his many other cares, and he laughingly remaiked that it 
was well he did, as having dictated the following sentence in 
connection with a certain policeman, ''I was obliged to restrain 
the virtuous ardor of Sergeant Muiphy, who, in his efforts to 
bring about a state of quiet on the streets, would frequently 
commit some assault himself,'' the yoimg Irish stenographer, 
listening to the rapid dictation, spelled "some assault" ''somer- 
sault," and, as my brother remarked, one could not but laugh 
at the thought of Sergeant Muiphy performing somersaults 
like a circus down on Mulberry Street, and, fortunately, the 
word caught the ever-watchful eye of the police commissioner 
before the report was printed, and, even in spite of the incon- 
venience, he set himself to work to improve the young stenog- 
rapher's mistaken orthographic efforts. 

In q>ite of his busy days and bu^ niights, he had time, as 
usual, to write to me when he thought that I needed his care 
or interest. I was far from well at the time, but was obstinately 
determined to go up to visit my boys at St. Paul's School, and 
he writes me: ''Won't you let Douglas and me go up to 
St. Paul's, and you stay at home? If you wiU do this, I shall 
positively go for anniversary on June 2nd. I believe you should 
not go on these trips whedier for pleasure or duty, and should 
take more care of yourself. Your loving and anxious brother." 

He himself has given in his autobiography many incidents 
connected with his police oommissionership. 

The force were devoted to him, as were his Rough Riders 
later, largely on account of the justice with which he treated 
them, and the friendly attitude which he always maintained 
toward them. Otto Raphael, a young Jew, and a young Irish- 
man called Burke were two of the men whom he promoted be- 
cause of unusual bravery, and their loyalty and admiration fol- 
lowed him unswervingly. On the sad day when he was carried 
to the little cemetery at Oyster Bay, Burke— now Captain Burke 
— ^had been put in charge of the police arrangements for the 
fimeral. As he stood by the grave, the captain turned to me. 



i6o My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

the tears streaming down his face but with a smile in his blue 
Irish eyes, and said: ''Do you remember the fun of him, Mrs. 
Robinson? It was not only that he was a great man, but oh, 
there was such fun in being led by him. I remember one day 
when he was governor, and I was in charge of him, and I was 
riding by the side of his carriage down Madison Avenue, and he 
suddenly stuck his head out of the window and, 'Burke,' said he, 
'we are just going to pass my sister's house. I want to get out 
and say ^'how do you do" to my sister.' 'I don't think you have 
time, governor,' I said, 'I am afraid you are late now.' 'Oh, 
now, Burke, I want you to meet my sister. Get somAody to 
hold your horse,' he said; 'it won't take a minute.' And with 
that he leaped out of his carriage and was ringing the front door- 
bell in a flash. I followed him and I heard him call out to you, 
Mrs. Robins(m, that he had his friend Lieut. Burke with him, 
and could he bring him up-stairs to shake hands, and sure 
enough he did, and when I went down-stairs again I heard him 
telUng you some story, and the two of you were laughing fit to 
kill. When I got back that night to my wife, I said: 'Susan, if 
you are ever downhearted, all you have to do is to go up to 422 
Madison Avenue when the governor stops to see his sister, and 
hear them laugh.' " 

The commissionership was a bfg job well done, and the city 
of New York could not but fed a sense of great regret when 
President McKinley promoted the active young commissioner 
to be assistant secretary of the navy in 1897. ^t was his pride 
and one of his greatest satisfactions in later years to fed that he 
was instrumental in prq)aring our liavy for the war with Spain. 
For many years he had been convinced that the Spanish rule in 
Cuba should not continue; and the condition in Cuba, he fdt, 
was too intertwined with the affairs of the United States to be 
differentiated from them. In the days of President Cleveland, 
my brother had fdt that action should be taken, and in the same 
way he was convinced that Mr. McKinley was only putting off 
the evil day by not facing the situation earlier in his incumbency. 



Two Recreant New York Policemen i6i 

> 

As was the case in almost every crisis which arose, either na- 
tional or international, during my brother's life, he seemed to 
have a prescience of the future, and, therefore, he ahnost invari- 
ably — sometimes before other public men were awake to the con- 
tingency — sensed the need of taking stsps to avert or meet dif- 
ficulties which he fdt sure would soon have to be faced. 

The yoimg assbtant secretary of the navy was not very pop- 
ular with the administration on account of the views which he 
fdt it his duty honestly to express. On March 6, 1898, he writes 
to my husband: '^Ndther I nor anyone else, not even the Presi- 
dent can do more than guess. We are certainly drifting towards 
and not away from war, but the President will not make war, 
and will keep out of it if he possibly can. Neverthdess, with 
so much loose powder around, a coal may hop into it at any 
moment. In a week or two, I believe, we shall get that report. 
If it says the explosion was due to outside work, it will be very 
hard to hold the country. [He refers to the blowing up of the 
battleship Maine in Havana harbor.] But the President im- 
doubtedly will try peaceful means even then, at least, at first." 

At the time of the writing of that letter, Mrs. Theodore 
Roosevdt had been very ill and was still very delicate, and my 
brother had not only the many worries of the dq>artment in 
which he was working, as he himself puts it, ''like a fiend, for 
we have serious matters ahead," but he also had the great amdety 
of her condition on his heart. On the 28th of Mardi: "I have 
been working up to the handle here, and have about all I can 
do on hand now. I have very strong convictions <m this crisis, 
convictions which, I fear, do not commend themsdves to my 
official superiors." And again on April 2, 1898, he writes in 
full to my husband, who was always one of his most wdoome 
advisers: 

Dear Old Man: ^^"^ Department, April 2, 1898. 

In one way I was very much pleased at recdving your letter, 
for it shows the thoughtfulness and affection you always feel 



1 62 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

for me. In another way your letter makes it very hard for me. 
All my friends have written me as you have, and yet I am con- 
vinced that you are all wrong. Do not misunderstand me. It 
may well be that I can't get down with an Expeditionary force 
even if , as I think unlikely, an Ei^editionary force is started 
before next fall. Indeed I think I shall probably have to stay 
here, and I should certainly stay here until we got a successor 
broken in. But if I get a fair chance to go, or could make a 
&ir chance, I conscientiously feel that I ouj^t to go. My use- 
fulness in my present position is mainly a usefulness in time 
of peace, because in time of peace the naval officers cannot speak 
freely to the Secretary and I can and do, both to the Secretary 
and President, even at the cost of jeopardizing my place. But 
in time of war the naval officers will take their proper positions 
as military advisers, and my usefulness would be at an end. I 
should simply be one of a number of unimportant bureau chiefs. 
If I went I shouldn't expect to win any militaiy glory, or at the 
utmost to do more than fed I had respectably performed my 
duty; but I think I would be quite as useful in the Army as 
here, and it does not seem to me that it would be honorable for 
a man who has con^tently advocated a warlike policy not to 
be willing himself to bear the brunt of carrying out that policy. 
I have a horror of the people who bark but don't bite. If I am 
ever to accomplish anjrthing worth doing in politics, or ever 
have accomplished it, it is because I act up to what I preach, 
and it does not seem to me that I would have the right in a big 
crisis not to act up to what I preach. At least I want you to 
believe that I am doing this oonsdentious]^ and not from merely 
selfish reasons, or from an impulse of levity. 

I shall answer Corinne in a day or two. April X3th I was 
to have been in Boston, but if we have trouble, I, of course, can't 
get away. I hope Corinne will stay over the following Sunday, 
so I may have a good chance to see her. 

Faithfully yours. 



Two Recreant New York Policemen 163 

The above is a most characteristic letter. Those who were 
nearest to him, like m}rself and my husband, and even Senator 
Lodge, were doubtful of his wisdom in leaving his important 
position (I mean important for the affairs of the country, not 
for himseU) as assistant secretary of the navy to take active 
part in the war, should war come, but he himself knew quite 
well that bdng made of the fibre that he was, he must act up to 
what he had preached. Nothing is more absolutely Theodore 
Roosevelt, was ever more thorouj^y Theodore Roosevelt, than 
that sentence. ''I have a horror of the people who bark but 
don't bite. If I am ever to accomplish anything worth doing 
in politics, or ever have accomplished it, it is because I act up 
to what I preach, and it does not seem to me that I would have 
the right in a bfg crisis not to act up to what I preach. At least 
I want you to believe that I am doing this conscientiously and 
not from merely selfish reasons or from an impulse of levity." 
No sentence ever written by my brother more fitly ea^ressed 
his attitude toward conviction and acting up to conviction. 



vm 

COWBOY AND CLUBMAN 

A RHYME OF THE ROUGH RTOERS 

The ways of fate they had trod were as wide 

As the sea from the shouting sea. 
But when they had ranged them side by side. 

Strenuous, eager, and ardent-eyed, 
They were brothers in pluck, they were brothers in pride, 

As the veriest brethren be. 

They heard no bugle-peal to thrill 

As they crouched in the tanked grass, 

But the sound of bullets whirring shrill 
From hidden hollow and shrouded hill; 

And they fought as only the valiant will 
In the glades of Guasimas. 

Aye, they fought, let their blood attest I — 

The blood of their comrades gone; 
Fought their bravest and fou^t their best, 

As when, like a wave, in their zealous zest 
They swept and surged o'er the sanguine crest 

Of the heights of San Juan. 

So here's to them aU— a toast and a cheer I — 
From the greatest down to the least, 

The heroes who fronted the deadliest fear, 
Leader and lad, each volunteer. 

The men whom the whole broad land holds dear 
From the western sea to the east I 

—Clinton ScoUard, 1898. 

THOSE April days of 1898 in Washington were full of an 
underlying current of excitement. Drifting toward war 
we certainly were, and within a very short few weeks 
the drift had become a fixed headway, and Captain Dewey, on 

the receq>t of a certam telegram from a certain acting secretary 

164 



Cowboy and Clubman 165 

of the navy, was to enter Manila Bay, and by that entrance, 
and by the taking of Cavite, to change forever the policy of the 
United States. Theodore Roosevelt had been criticised for the 
amount of ammunition used in practice by the gunners of the 
navy during the past q>ring. He knew only too well that the 
real extravagance in either army or navy comes from lack of 
foresight, and the fine marksmanship of the sailors and marines 
was to prove a feather in the cap of the yoimg assistant secre- 
tary. 

Everything was bustle and hurry toward the end of April. 
Within a few days the assistant secretary was to become the 
lieutenant-colonel of the Rough Riders, or, as they were at 
first called. The First U. S. Volunteer Cavaliy. Mr. McEanley 
offered to Mr. Roosevelt the colonelcy of the regiment, but he, 
with modesty and intelligence^ refused the offer, knowing that 
he was not as well fitted by experience for the position as was 
his friend, Mr. McEJnley's physician, that gallant surgeon in 
the army, Leonard Wood, who had had as a younger man so 
much experience in the campaign against Geronimo. The two 
young men, within a year of each other in age, had been friends 
for some time, having many tastes in common, and the same 
stalwart attitude of unswerving Americanism. Their friend- 
ship had been cemented during the spring of 1898 by the fact 
that they felt that their views in connection with the mistakes 
of Spain in Cuba were very sympathetic. On the long tramps 
which they took together on those spring afternoons, they dis- 
cussed the all-important question over and over again, and also 
discussed the possibility of raising a regiment of men from the 
fearless, hardy cowboys and backwoodsmen of the West. It 
was no sooner known that Leonard Wood and Theodore Roose- 
velt were about to raise a regiment to go to Cuba than every 
sort and kind of individual flocked to their standard. The 
mobilization of the regiment took place in San Antonio, Texas. 
My brother writes to me on May 5, 1898, from Washington: 
''You could not give me a more useful present than the 



1 66 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

watch. It was exajcHy what I wished. Thank old Douglas too, 
for the watch and for his many many kindnesses. I hope to 
leave to-morrow, but Wood, who is now in San Antonio, may 
keep me here a day or two longer to hurry up the shipment of 
the troops, rifles, etc. I much want to get with the regiment 
to he^ get it into sbscpCf but there will be many tedious and 
irritating delays, of course. I have about twenty-five 'gentle- 
men rankers' going with me from the Knickerbocker Club, and 
twelve dean-cut stalwart yoimg fellows from Harvard, — such 
fine boys. I fed rather like a fake at going, for we may never 
get down to Cuba at all, and if we do, I do not think we shall 
see very serious campaigning, while proper care will prevent the 
serious risk of disease.'' 

And again on May 8: 

''Kenneth turned up just in time. [Referring to my hus- 
band's young Scotch cousin, Kenneth Douglas Robinson, asso- 
ciated with my husband in business, who was confident that he 
was doing the right thing to foUow his hero, Theodore Roosevelt, 
into the Spanish War.] I enlisted him and sent him off with 
Bob Ferguson [another Scotch friend] and the rest. • . ." 

And again on May Z2, after I had sent him a poem, he 
writes: 

''My own darling sisters— I loved tne poem and I loved your 
dear letter; it made me sure that you really knew just how I 
fdt about going. I could not stay; that was the sum and sub- 
stance of it; — ^although I realize well how hard it is for Edith, 
and what a change for the worse it means in my after life. It 
will be bitter if we do not get to Cuba, but we shall have to take 
things as they come. Your own brother." 

I had doubted whether it was his duty to go to Cuba, feel- 
ing it might be even more his duty to remain in his important 
and difficult position of assistant secretary of the navy, but Theo- 
dore Roosevdt would not have been his true self unless he had 
practised what he had preached so vigorously. 

Kenneth Robinson writes on May 17 from San Antonio: 



€k)wboy and Clubman 167 

''Theodore has been diiOuig us the last few days. The men 
always do then: best when he is out. He would be amused in- 
deed if he heard some of the adjectives and terms applied to 
him, meant to be most complimentary but hardly fit for publica- 
tion. We certainly are a curious agp:egatton, — cavalry men, 
cowboys, college men, etc.'' 

And Bob Ferguson, our very dear friend who had made 
America his home, and was like a member of our family, writes 
early in June: 

''You should see some of the broncho busting that has been 
going on daily in camp; — ^the most surprising horsemanship, 
and though it cost about a man a day at first, knocked dean 
out, the busted-rate is now diminishing. The men, as you can 
imagine, are well satisfied with their commanders; Theodore 
has a great hold on them, and before long he will be able to do 
anything he likes with them. The Army officers said they had 
never seen such a body of men. One of the troops from Arizona 
came almost entirely from one large ranch; th^ all know each 
other and will fight shoulder to shoulder. Our own troop — 
'K' was rather a gay affair at first, a little gang of Fifth Avenue 
'Dudes' having constituted themselves as leaders before Iheo* 
dore arrived, but now it has a large number of first rate oow- 
punchers and sheriffs drafted into it, and has been increased 
one-third beyond its normal strength. We are more or less in- 
telligent, and are looked to as the possible crack troop." 

It is interesting to k)ok back and remember that that G>m- 
pany ^'E" was indeed a '^crack troop," and the writer of the 
above lines became one of its most gallant officers. Whatabody 
of men they were I The romance of mediaeval days was reborn 
in that regiment, and the strange part of it all was that they 
had so much of chivalry about them, in spite of the roughness 
of the cowboys, in spite of the madness of the bronco-busters, 
in spite, perhaps, of another type of madness injected into the 
regiment by the Fifth Avenue "Dudes"; still, that body of 
men, as a whole, stood out for gallantry and courage, and gen- 



1 68 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

tleness of spirit wherever gentleness of spirit was needed in the 
hard days to oome. There was a poem written at that time. 
''The Yankee Dude'U Do/' and I remember the little thrill with 
which I read it, reaUzing how the names that up to that time 
had been connected with rather gay and useless lives became 
bywords for hard, persistent work ''to make" good in the vari- 
ous companies. 

Theodore himself writes to me on June 7 in camp near 
Tampa, Florida: 

'Tirst Regunent, U. S. Volunteer Cavalry. 

''We are on the point of embarking for Cuba. Yesterday I 
thought I was going to be left, and would have to stay on this 
side during the first expedition for they intended to take but 
four troops. Now, however, they intend to take eight, and 
unless the transports give out, I shall go. I need not say how 
rejoiced I am, for I could not help feeling very bitterly when it 
seemed that I would be left. This really is a fine regiment, and 
Count Von Goetzen and Capt. Lee, the German and English 
Military Attaches, watched our gun drill yesterday in camp 
with General Sumner, and all three expressed what seemed to 
be sinc^e astonishment and pleasure at the rapidity with which 
we had got the men into shape. I wish you could see how melan- 
choly the four troops that remain behind feel; it is very hard 
on them. I had the last two squadrons under my care on the 
harassing journey on the cars and it was no slight labor. How 
I would like to have Douglas as an officer in this rq;iment with 
me. He would take to it just as I do. 

'^ Well, if our hopes are realized, we sail tomorrow for Cuba, 
but nobody can tell how many of us will get back, and I don't 
suppose there is much glory ahead, but I hope and believe we 
shall do our duty, and the home-coming will be very very 
pleasant for those who do come home." 

How my heart ached as I read those last words and realized 
that the chances, in all probability, were strongly against his 
coming home again. 



Cowboy and Clubman 169 

On June za: 

DaminG Cownne: ^ ^'^^ ^- ^- T^n^port Yucatan. 

I suppose it is simply the ordinary fortune of war for the 
most irritating delays to happen, but it seems to me that the 
people at Washington are inexcusable for putting us aboard 
ship and keeping us crowded to suffocation on these transports 
for six days in Tampa Harbor, in a semi-tropical sun. The men 
take it with great resolution and good humour, but if we are 
kept here much longer, it cannot fail to have a bad effect upon 
them. We have been dismounted, but I care nothing for that 
if only we are sent, and given a chance to get into the game.. 
I wish you could see or coidd have seen us at some of the crises 
when, for instance, we spent all night standing up opposite a 
railway track, waiting for a train to come, and finally taking 
coal cars in the morning. 

On the 14th he writes to my husband: 

''We are about to sail and as we are at the mouth of the har- 
bor, it is hardly likely that we can be recalled. ... It has 
been most interesting even when the work was irritating and 
full of worry. The regiment is a wonderful body of men and 
they have taken to discq)line with astonishing readiness and 
are wild with eager enthusiasm. Those of us who come out of 
it safe will be bound together all our lives by a very strong tie. 
You may rest assured I haven't the slightest idea of taking any 
risk I don't feel I absolutely must take." 

There was no doubt of the strong tie that bound the Rough 
Riders, as they were later called, together. We always teased 
my brother when, as President, he would suddenly announce 
that ''Happy Jack of Arizonia,'' or some such erstwhile comrade, 
was eminent}^ fitted for a position for which the aforesaid 
" Happy Jack '' did not seem to have strong qualifications. How 
they loved their leader, and how that love was returned ! When- 
ever my brother spoke of his "regiment" a note of tenderness 



1 7© My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

came into his voice euch as might be beard in the voice of a 
woman when speaking of her lover. 

That same day, June 14, Bob Feiguson wrote to me: 

^'Theodore is absolutely radiating. He just lent me 'Vanity 
Fair' in return for a box of peppermints, and it has been queer 
just at this moment to read about old Cur2x>n street and the 
Brussels' Ball; but Becky made us laugh more than ever after 
reading nothing but Tactics or a local newspaper for several 
weeks. • « « This country is becoming the lau{^iing-stock of 
the world at present, and the German experts really do not be- 
lieve the United States can fight. It will bring on b^ world 
complications unless they show their power soon." 

The above opinion is interesting in the Ught of what the Ger- 
man experts again felt about the United States before we en- 
tered the Great War in 1917 1 

On June 15 a letter dated in the Gulf of Mexico runs as 
follows: 

''We are steaming southward through a sapphire sea, wind- 
rqipled under an almost cloudless sky. There axe some forty- 
eig^t craft in all, in three columns, — ^the blade hulls of the trans- 
ports setting off the gray hull of the man-of-war. Last eve- 
ning, we stood up on the bridge and watched the red sun sink 
and Hghts blaze up on the ships for miles ahead^ while the band 
played piece after {nece from the Star Spangled Banner (at 
which we all rose and stood uncovered) to The Girl I Left Be- 
hind Me. It is a great historical expedition and I thrill to fed 
that I am part of it. If we fail, of course, we share the fate of 
all who do fail, and if we are allowed to succeed, for we cer- 
tainly shall succeed if allowed, we have scored the first great 
triumph of what will be a world movement. All the young 
fellows have dimly felt what this means, though the only ar- 
ticulate soul and imagination among them belong, rather curi- 
ously, to Ex-sheriff Capt. Buckey O'Neil of Arizona." 

The above Buckey O'NeH, leaning over the rail at sunset, 
would often quote Browning, my brother used to tell me, or 



Cowboy and Clubman 171 

Whitman, or even Shelley. He was a real '^Bret Harte '' char- 
acter, and one of my brother's greatest griefs in the days to 
come was that that gallant officer was amongst the first to fall. 
He had just exposed himself to Spanish fire somewhat mmeces- 
sarily, and my brother said to him: ''Get down, Buckey; I 
cannot spare you.'' The other laughingly replied, ''There isn't 
a bullet made that can kill me, Colonel," and Hterally, as he 
spoke, a stray shot struck him and he fell dead across my broth- 
er's knees. But to return: 

June 20, i8g8 — ^Ttoop Ship near Santiago. 
All day we have steamed dose to the Cuban coast; high 
barren-looking mountains rise abruptly from the shore, and 
at this distance )ook much like those of Montana. We are well 
within the tropics and at night, the Southern Cross is low above 
the horizon. It seems too strange to see it in the same sky with 
the friendly Dipper. 

And then later: 

June 25, xSpS—Las Guasimaa— 

Yesterday we struck the Spaniards and had a brisk fight 
for two and a half hours before we drove them out of their posi- 
tion. We tost twelve men, killed or mortally wounded, and 
sixty, severely or slightly wounded. Brodie was wounded, — 
poor Capron and Ham Fish were kiUed; one man was kiUed as 
he stood beside a tree with me, another bullet went through a 
tree behind which I stood and fiUed my eyes with bark. The 
last charge I led on the left using a rifle I took from a wounded 
man. Every man behaved well; there was no flinching. The 
fire was very hot at one or two points where the men around 
me went down like nine-pins. We have been ashore three days 
and were moved at once to the front without our baggage. I 
have been sleeping on the ground in a mackintosh, and so 
drenched with sweat that I have not been dry a minute day 
and night. The marches have been very severe. One of my 



172 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

horses was drowned swimming through the surf. It was a fierce 
fight; the Spaniards shot well^ but they did not stand when we 
rushed. 

We received the details of the fight of Las Guasimas on the 
4th of July, I remember, and all night long I sat on my piazza 
on Orange Mountain, thinking, with a strange horror, of the 
danger in which my brother had been and still was. 

On June 27, 1898, another letter, this time dated Santiago: 

''We have a lovely camp here by a beautiful stream which 
runs through jungle-land banks. Tlie morning after the fight, 
we buried our d^ul in a great big trench, reading the solemn 
burial service over them, and all the regiment joined in singing 
'Rock of Ages.' The woods are full of land crabs, some of 
which are almost as big as rabbits; when things grew quiet, 
they slowly gathered in gruesome rings around the fallen." 

Bob Ferguson also adds interesting evidence to the courage 
of the First Volunteer Cavalry under fire. 

Las Guasimas — ^June 25, 1898. 
Theodore and Wood are more than delighted with the con- 
duct of the men. You never heard such a hail of shot. The 
enemy, of course, knew when we would be in the jungle, and 
we could only guess their whereabouts. Their volleys opened 
up from all directions. Theodore did great work skipping from 
one troop to another, and directed them as they were deployed, 
but we can only trust that this kind of thing won't happen too 
often, for fear of results. It was, in fact, a surprise party, how- 
ever, an expected one. Our men rushed into a known ambush 
with the careless dash of the cow-puncher. Once in, they lit- 
erally had to hug the ground while the trees above and beside 
them were torn to shreds. . . . Theodore has marked the Span- 
iard all right — and the name of his regiment will never be spoken 
of any too lightly. They really did not understand fear and 
would willingly repeat the dose tomorrow. Poor Ham Fish, — 



Cowboy and Clubman 173 

he was such a good-hearted, game fellow, and I got to like him 
ever so much on the way down; — ^it is more than much now ! — 
The Spaniards showed any amount of skiU in their tactics, and 
only the extraordinary grit of our men undid their calculation, 
together with the good work of a parallel column of Regulars, 
who cleared the Spaniards off a flanking ridge in the forest in 
the finest style-— other?nse they could have out-flanked us on 
either side and given us Hell in open sight So far, it seems like 
fighting an aimy of invisible Pigmies. . • • Kenneth was aw- 
fully good yesterday after the fight He was the first to volun- 
teer to help the wounded when the entire troop was too exhausted 
to move; — he carried them for hours until his back gave out. 
. . . We really did ^lendidly yesterday. The Regulars are 
to have their turn now. We have been blooded ourselves. We 
lost too many officers. One little fellow, shot right through 
both hips, was the greatest little sport He refused to be at- 
tended to until others were made comfortable, and he lay and 
smoked his pq)e patiently. One man walked to the hospital 
with five wounds >— in the neck, right shoulder, right hand, left 
thigh, and one other. 

It is a matter of interest to print the above extracts, for even 
when my brother wrote his book called ''The Rough Riders," 
he could not give quite the spirit which the letters, penned at 
the moment of the happenings, can so fitly interpret. Bob Fer- 
guson again, on July 5, gave an important descrq>tion of my 

brother: 

Before Santiago, July 5, 1898. 

We have been having the devil of a fine time of it, shooting 
Spaniards, and being "stormed at by shot and shell." When 
I caught up with Theodoie, the day of his famous chaige, (hav- 
ing been held in the reserve line until tired of being pelted at 
from a distance) "T" was revelling in victory. He had just 
''doubled up" a Spaniish officer like a jack-rabbit, as he re- 
treated from a block house. . . . That same evening, having 



174 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

reached the most advanced crest possible, with about 300 men, 
and having the whole Spanish Army firing at us from their en- 
trenchments around the dty, the summit of our ambition was 
almost reached. 

Theodore moved about in the midst of shrapnel explosions 
like Shadrach, Meschach & Sons in the midst of the fiery furnace, 
unharmed by the vidous Mauser balls or by the buzzing explod- 
ing bullets of the Lregulais. • • • Theodore preferred to 
stand up or walk about snufiing the fragrant air of combat. 
I really believe firmly now, that they cannot kill him. It looks, 
too, somewhat as if they would not get a chance for a spell, for 
our lines are around the Spanish Dog's throat, and he will be 
smothered by our fire in a moment should the fight open once 
more. It would seem a shame now to have to damage them any 
more, for they say the streets are full of wounded and spent balls 
shower among them. • . • Theodore has sure made his mark 
on the Spaniard, — and the Rough Riders [the regiment had al- 
ready ceased to be called the First Volunteer Cavalry, and was 
never again known as anything but the Rough Riders] will re- 
iiMiJii— pitdiing bronchos and all, afoot or on horseback ! • . • 
The ''bob whites" whistle all around these plantations, and 
transport one straight bac^ to Sagamore Hill on a summer's 
day. The mountains here are glorious; the valleys, a dream 
of droc^ing pahns, and dark, cool, shaded mangroves dustered; 
soft bamboo waves near' the creeks and smiling ridges, once all 
under cultivation. 

My brother himself, in a letter dated from Santiago, July 
19, 1898, writes: 

'^ Darling Corinne: — 'Triumph tasted'! — ^for that, one will 
readily pay as heavy a price as we have paid; but it is bitter 
to think that part of the price was due to the mismanagement 
of those in authority. The misery has been fearful. Today, 
out of my four hundred odd men in camp, one hundred and 



Cowboy and Clubman 175 

twenty-three are under the doctor's caxe. The rest of the sk 
hundred with whom I landed are dead or in the rear hospitals. 
I cannot explain the breakdown of the transportation service, 
the commissariat, or the hospital service.*' 

I quote the above letter for the q)ecial puipose of recalling 
to my readers the fact that Colonel Roosevelt was much criti- 
cised later for instigating the writing of a ''round-robin" letter 
in the summer, uiging the authorities to bring home the r^- 
ments after the victory was won. Due to the ''breakdown'' 
which he describes, the men were dying like flies, and had that 
"round robin" (severely censured by my brother's enemies) 
not been written, had the authorities at Washington not decided 
to follow the suggestions of Theodore Roosevelt and order our 
gallant men back from then: death-trap, very few of that ex- 
pedition to Cuba would have Eved to tell the tale. At the end 
of the above letter, after describing in full the sufferings of the 
men because of lack of care, he says: 

"They have been worn down by the terrific strain of fight- 
ing, marching, digging in the trenches, during the tropical mid- 
summer; .they have been in the fore-front, all through, they 
never complained though half-fed and with dothes and shoes 
in tatters; but it is bitter to think of the wealth at home, which 
would be so gladly used in their behalf if only it could be so 
used. They are devoted to me, and I cannot get their condi- 
tion out of my thoughts. If only you could see them in battle, 
or feeding these wretched refugee women and children, whose 
miseiy beggars description. [Did I not say that these wild, 
strong men of the West were gentle in heart as well as fierce in 

courage!] 

"WeD, it is a great thing to have led such a r^pment on the 
crowning day of its life. Young Burke [Eddie Burice] is well 
and is a first-class man and soldier. I like and req>ect him. Bob 
earned his promotbn. The New YoriL men have stood the strain 
well. I felt dreadfully about Kenneth's wound that day, but I 
was near the line, with my men, nearest the Spaniard, and I 



176 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

could not have gone back or held back for my own son. No 
man was ahead of me when we charged or rushed to the front 
to repel a charge; and indeedi I think my men would follow 
me literally anjrwhere. In the hard days I fared absolutely 
as they did, in food and bedding, — or rather, the lack of both. 
Now, yellow fever has broken out in the Army and I know not 
when we shall get away, but whatever comes, it is all right and 
I am content. Love to little Teddy and all the others. Your 
brother." 

The same day he wrote my husband: 

^^Two of our men have died of yellow fever. We hope to 
keep it out of camp, and if we succeed, I trust we shall soon get 
to Porto RioD. Whatever amies, I cannot say how glad I am 
to have been in this. I feel that I now leave the children a mem- 
ory that will partly o£Fset the fact that I did not leave them much 
money. I have been recommended for the Colonelcy of this 
raiment, and for the medal of honor. Of course, I hope to get 
both, but I really don't care very much, for the Mt^ iisdf is 
more important than the reward, and I have led this regiment 
during the last three weeks, the crowning weeks of its life. There 
is nothing I would have exchanged for having led it on horse- 
back, where, first of all the army, we broke through the enem/s 
entrenchments. By the way, I then killed a Spaniard myseU 
with the pistol Will Cowles raked up from the Maine. Of the 
six hundred men with whom I landed,, less than three hundred 
are left; the others are dead or in the hospital; the mismanage^ 
ment has been beyond belief.'' 

Alas, how sad it seems that the mismanagement should have 
been beyond belief at such a time ! 

On July 27 a letter dated "First Regiment, U. S. Volunteer 
Cavaliy, in camp near Santiago de Cuba," was received by my 
husband. A very characteristic letter it was, full of the joy of 
a fight well fought, and full also, of that tremendous human 
sympathy with his men, combined with an intelligent practi- 
cality which resulted later in the "round robin," requesting that 



Cowboy and Clubman 177 

the men who had fought so bravdy, should not be allowed to 
die of disease unnecessarily by being retained for no good 
reason in the broiling heat of a Cuban summer. 

''Dear Douglas/' he writes, ''we had a bully fight at San- 
tiagOi and though there was an immense amount that I did not 
exactly enjoy, the charge itself was great fun. Frankly, it did 
not enter my head that I could get through without being hit, 
but I judged that even if hit, the chances would be about 3 to 
I against my being killed. 

"As far as the political effect of my actions; — ^in the first 
place, I never can get on in politics, and in the second, I would 
rather have led that charge and earned my colonelcy, than serve 
three terms in the United States Senate. It makes me feel as 
though I could now leave somethiug to my children which will 
serve as an apology for my having existed. [How much hb 
existence needed an apology !] In ^ite of the strain, and the 
anything but hygienic conditions under which we have lived, 
I am in very good health. If we stay here all summer, we shall 
have yellow fever among us, of course, but I rather think I will 
pull through that too. I wish they would let us go to Porto Rico, 
or if noty then let me get all my regiment together in Maine or 
somewhere like that and get diem in trim for the great cam- 
paign against Havana in the Fall. I wish you could see these 
men. I am as proud of them as I can be, and I verily believe 
they would go anywhere with me. They are being knocked down 
right and left, however, with the fever. I shan't take any risks 
unless I really think I ought to, and now, I b^gin to belfeve that 
I am going to get home safely." 

A letter from Bob Ferguson about the same time backs up 
his future position in regard to moving the men, and reiterates: 

"It was a glorious spin, over trenches and barbed wires in- 
stead of oaken panels, however. One never expects to see the 
like again; — Corinne and Anna must have suffered terribly from 
Theodore's wild, whirlwind career! His courage all through 
was so simple and so true to him. The Spaniards laughed at 



178 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

the CubanSi and said they had no fighting to do until the Amer- 
icans came; — ^they 'kept on coming.' One officer told Colonel 
Wood that the Americans were 'magnanimous, brave, and fero- 
cious' If Cervera had stayed in harbor with his ships, we would 
have been in the devil of a hole between starvation and fever. 
It is lucky things went as they did." 

And again, on August 6, he writes to me: 

''These dreary Cuban days and dark and dismal nights are 
drawing to a close for the time, — Tliank the Lord and Theodore. 
[The much-criticised "round robin" had had its effect] It is 
hardly fair to damn this country that way, however, for in real- 
ity, it is most inexplicably beautiful. In the sunshine of the 
morning, when once in a while an almost refreshing breeze comes, 
then the tropical valleys bask and smile in the most enticing 
luxuriance, and entrance one into lazy dreams of fairy-land. 
The mass of the scarlet acacia, the trails of morning-glories, and 
lilies, and the hot growth of all kinds, — ^above all, the graceful 
and kingly royal palm and his harem, the slender, tall, clus- 
tering bamboos, — are all lovely. These things by moon-li^t 
were simply inexpressible; however, the real side of nature is 
deadly sun, over-whelming, drenching rain, dark, drizzly mist 
and dew, fever, malaria, filth, disgust with ever3rthing. Well, 
this is at an end now, and almost time it were, for there would 
not be many left to tell the tale if left here all summer as the 
President and Secretary proposed to leave us only a couple of 
days ago, but Theodore 'sicked one' as your Stewart's whole 
pack of pup-dogs could not commence to do. If we take a final 
fall, it will be at Havana in the autumn and not with yellow fever, 
if we can help it, here at Santiago. You all had a dreadful 
time of it, probably far worse than we merry men of the Green- 
wood. Honestly, while it is all going along and when there is 
an advance, the spirits rise amazingly and one trips forward 
as gaily as in Sir Roger or any other airy measure. That, how- 
ever, is the one really satislactory sensation. Lying passive in 
reserve, and being searched and f oimd by the long-range mausers 



Cowboy and Clubman 179 

and shrapnel in the bushes, is not so cheerful an occupation; 
in fact, it is a low proceeding altogether. 

"Who(^ing along from time to time ^thoro bush — thoro 
brier/ with a wildish throng, firing, cheering, laughing, and run- 
ning, — that, is a very different story, and holding the advance 
point in ^ite of orders to retire ( I) is another thing to make 
even novices chuckle inwardly when they once feel they can do 
it, — ^but Theodore was the sparkle to all that fun. 

''I could make your flesh creep, however, with horror; mean- 
while, you can picture to yourself in pleasant nightmares, flocks 
of vultures and buzzards, the dead and wounded lost in the 
tangled growth, — and swarms of crabs, — great big land crabs 
with one, enormous, lobster-like daw, creeping, rustling, scuf- 
fling thro' the dried aloes and pafanettoes. . . . War never 
dumges its hideous phantasms. The heroism of even modem 
men (and none the less of the women who let them go) is the one 
thing to glory and hope in. We pack up tonight My love to 
an." 

And so ended the brief and glorious career of the Rou{^ 
Riders, a career whidi has about it a toudi of Roland and Robin 
Hood. These letters, written at the timet ^^ valuable refuta- 
tions of some bruited questions, and the very people who criti- 
cised certain actions of my brother, at the timej would be the first, 
I verfly believe, now, to wish they had withhdd their criticism. 

The depleted raiment, emaciated beyond words, returned 
to Montauk Point on Long Island, and my husband and I came 
down from the Adirondack Mountains to meet them at Camp 
W}rckoff. What a night we spent in a Red Cross tent at the 
camp ! How we talked ! How good it was to greet the gallant 
men again, so many of whom we knew and loved, and how in- 
finitdy interesting to come in contact with the wild Westerners 
about whose courage and determination my brother had written 
such gk>wing accounts. 

In the last letter my brother wrote to my husband from San- 
tiago, the sentence "As for the political dffect of my actbns. 



i8o My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

I never can get on in politics" was soon to be refuted, for hardly 
had he arrived at Montauk than the politicians flocked sur- 
reptitiously to sound him as to the possibility of his running 
for governor of New York State, but that's another story ! 

The throb of parting from their leader was soon to be experi- 
enced by the gallant men who had followed Theodore Roose- 
velt so eagerly in the Cuban jungles. Picturesque to the end, 
the mustering out of the Rough Riders, under bhie autumnal 
skies at Montauk Point, was the culmination of its romantic 
career, and many a ferocious fighter and wild bronco-buster 
turned from the last hand-daq) of his colonel with tears in the 
eyes which had not flinched before the fiercest Spanish onslaught 



IX 

THE ROUGH KTDER STORMS THE CAPITOL 

AT ALBANY 



THE MAN WHO CAN 

(OU Saax)n for "The King ") 

WuTTEN OF Theodore Roosevelt 

How shall we know ''the man who can"? 

(That was the Saxon phrase, they say.) 
Nayi perchance we shall find the man 

Close to our hearts and lives to-day I 

Soldier and patriot, strong of hand, 

Keen of vision to know the time, 
Quick and true to the hour's demand, 

Poet, too, without rune or rhyme I 

Poet, because through mists of sin 

He finds the best as it yet shall be. 
Faces evil, yet dares begin 

To Uve the good that his soul can see. 

Speech like an arrow, swift and straight. 

Strength that smites to the core of wrong; 

SmUe that mocks but an adverse fate, 
Heart of a boy, that leaps to song. 

Honor scornful of life or place, 

Courage brightest in sordid strife; 
Such is the man whose first, best grace 

Was the simple crown of a stainless life I 

—Marion Couthouy Smith. 

IT could not have been a pleasant thought to Mr. Thomas 
Piatt (the acknowledged Republican boss of New York 
State, and a most interesting and unusual personality) when 
he realized that the tremendous popularity of the colonel of 
the Rough Riders would force him to accept the suggestion of 

i8z 



1 82 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

some of the Republican leaders that this same colonel should 
be the Republican nominee for governor that autumn of 1898. 
The dash of the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill was not more 
strenuous than Theodore Roosevelt's sudden and unexpected 
storming of the Albany Capitol. What an autumn it was I 
Every imaginable obstacle was put in the way of his success. 
He was accused of not having paid his taxes; he was bitterly 
impugned by a certain number of his former friends and ad- 
herents — ^Independents — who did not believe that he should 
accept the '' regular" nominationi and many and varied were 
the battles fought about and around his personality. 

The whole campaign had to be arranged so suddenly and 
hurriedly that all kinds of amusingi although sometimes un- 
pleasant, contretemps occurred. One remains clearly in my 
mind. There was to be held near Troy a country fair. Its date 
had apparently not been determined upon before my brother 
had agreed to speak at what promised to be a large colored 
meeting the evening of the same day on which the fair was to 
be held. My brother had not expected to have to go to the fair, 
but a sudden summons came, saying that it was very important 
that he should appear and make an out-of-door speech to a large 
concourse of up-state farmers. He was torn from Oyster Bay 
at an abnormally early hour and dashed up to Troy. Mean- 
while, the newspapers of Albany and Troy had announced that 
he could not be present owing to his engagement for the eve- 
ning in New York. The consequence was that the attendance 
at the fair at the time he was supposed to speak was almost nil, 
and he returned to New York much depre^ed at the apparent 
lack of interest. I came in from my country home to dine with 
him and go to the colored meeting. The colored people were 
especially enthusiastic about my brother's candidacy, because 
the Tenth Regiment of regulars, a colored regiment, had stormed 
San Juan Hill side by side with the Rough Riders. The meet- 
ing scheduled had been widely heralded, and we started for the 
haJl with the conviction that although the day had been a failure 



The Rough Rider Storms the Capitol 183 

the night was going to justify our highest ezpectatioiis. Aiiiv- 
ing at the hall, one old man with a long gray beard, sitting in 
the front seat, was apparently the total of the great audience 
that had been promised. My brother and I waited in the little 
room near the platform, anxiously peering out every now and 
then, hoping that the hall would soon be filled to overflowing, 
but no one came, and after an hour and a half of Hwli<Hn-ti>ning 
dbappointment, we shook hands warmly with the faithful elderly 
adherent— ^who had remained silently in his seat during this 
period of wuting— and left the halL My brother, in spite of 
distinct distress of mind, turned laughingly to me as we walked 
rapidly away and said, quoting from Maria Edgeworth's im- 
mortal pages: '^little Rosamund's day of misfortunes!'' The 
next day the morning newspapers announced that the evening 
newspapers had given the misinformation that the Rq>ublican 
candidate for governor would not be able to return from the 
Troy fair in time for the colored meeting, an announcement 
which had so discouraged the colored folk that only one old man 
had been true to his colors I 

From that day on, through the strenuous campaign, my 
brother was known by the family entirely as "Little Rosamund." 

Another evening comes back to my mind. My husband and 
my brother had left me in my country home on the hill at Orangey 
and they were supposed to return at eleven o'clock that nig^t 
The last train arrived and my carriage returned from it empty. 
I was worried, for they were so thoughtful that I felt they would 
surely have telephoned to relieve my possible anxiety, and when 
at twelve o'clock the tdephone-bell rang, I ran to the instrument 
expecting to hear a familiar voice, instead of which '^I am a 
World reporter" was what I heard, "and I would like to know 
where Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Douglas Robinson are." "I 
cannot give you any information," I replied discreetly, and 
more truthfully than usual, I confess. "It is very strange," 
said the voice — a distant unknown voice at twelve o'clock 
at night, when you are the sole occupant of a remote country 



184 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

house, always has a somewhat eerie effect — ^''for we have traced 
them up to within the last hour and we cannot find them any- 
where/' A slight wave of apprehension passed over me, but 
at the same tune I was sufficiently confident of my two stalwart 
gentlemen not to have any serious fear concerning their where- 
abouts, and suddenly seized with an irresistible desire to be 
'^funny*' — a perfectly inexcusable indination in a political cam- 
paign— I said to the reporter : *^ Wait one moment, please. Should 
you by any dhance discover the whereabouts of Colonel Roose- 
velt luid Mr. Robinson, would you be kind enough to let me 
know where they are?" I have always remembered the sound 
of the distant laugh of the man as I hurriedly put down the tele- 
phone-receiver, fully realiang my mistake in becoming jocose, 
and sure enough the next morning, in large headlines, appeared 
on the front page of the World: ''Mrs. Douglas Robinson has 
no knowledge wheie Cotond Roosevelt and Mr. Douglas Robin- 
son have spent the night." 

Another incident that comes back into my memoiy was an 
evening in Chickering Hall, almost immediately before Elec- 
tion day, at which many wdl-known speakers were to make 
their plea for the election of Theodore Roosevdt, and at which, 
also, that most brilliant of speakers and charming of men, Mr. 
Joseph H. Choate, was to bring the evening to a climax. As 
Election day drew near, the great boss of Tammany Hall, 
Richard Croker, forsook his usual methods of strict silence, and 
began to be loquacious. Croker, when running a candidate, was 
always veiy cueful indeed to keep the mystery of the Wigwam 
(Tammany) wrapped dosdy about him, but as the fight waxed 
hot and heavy, he lost his control and said many a foolish thing, 
and the Republican papers jubilantly announced that when 
Croker began to talk, it meant that he knew that his cause was 
lost 

At the meeting at Chickering Hall, when Mr. Choate rose 
to make the final speech of the evening, he said: 

''Ladies and gentlemen, it is late; you have heard many 



The Rough Rider Storms the Capitol 185 

gpeakm and I diaU be brief. AD that I wish to do is to recall 
to your minds a certain Bible stcny— you may not have the in- 
cident dear in your memoiy. I refer to the stoiy of Balaam 
andhisaas!" Here the learned speaker paused and his audience 
concentrated their attention iqxm him, somewhat puzzled as 
to ?^t he was about to say. He continued: ''You may remem- 
ber that Balaam was riding upon the ass through a dark forest, 
and that suddenly the ass stopped, and even more suddenly, 
ihe a$s spoheP* Mr. Qioate paused again, and the audience 
suddenly rippled out their mirth and their realization that the 
"ass'' who ^x>ke had a distinct reference to the utterances of 
Cinder. As the laughter grew louder, Mr. Choate suddenly 
lifted his hand in the most impressive manner, and continued 
in a serious tone full of dramatic power: ''But, ladies and gentle- 
men, you have periiaps forgotten wAry the ass spoke. The reason 
that he did so was because directiy in fab path, in shining gar- 
ments, stood a young man with a flaming sword in his hand !'^ 
As one man the audience rose to its feet I Simultaneously, a 
great cheer rose to the Iqis of every one present, for the figure 
of q)eech had done its work, and each person in the house vis- 
ualized the figure of Theodore Roosevelt, ardent and young, 
courageous and honest, truly "a young man with a flaming 
sword in his hand 1" 

Election day came and with it an overwhelming vicUxy for 
the man who so lately had written to Douglas Robinson: ''As 
for the political effect of my actions, I never can get on in 
pofitics.'' 

During his incumbency as governor of New York State he 
always made his headquarters either at the house of my sbter, 
Mrs. Cowles, or at my house, and many were the famous break- 
fast-parties at 422 Madison Avenue in those strenuous days. 
He was criticised for breakfasting with Mr. Piatt and Mr. Odell 
(Mr. Piatt's associate boss), but almost all of those much-dis- 
cussed meals took place at my own house, and many a time 
Messrs. Piatt and Odell had the unusual experience of finding 



1 86 My Brother Theodore Roosevdt 

that they were apparently expected to sit upon one chair, as 
my brother had invited so many more people to breakfast than 
could posably be seated at my comparatively small table. After 
breakfast was over, Mr. Piatt would say in a rather stem man- 
ner, '^And now, Ciovemor Roosevelt, I should like to have a 
private word with you," and my brother would answer, ''Why, 
certainly, Mr. Piatt, we will go rig^t up to my sister's library — 
good-by, gentlemen," turning to fab other guests, and then to 
Mr. Piatt again, ''We shall be quite private except for my sister. 
I always like to have her present at all my conferences. She 
takes so much interest in what I am doing!" This with a hu- 
morous side-glance at me, knowing how irritating my presence 
was to the gentleman in question. I can bear witness to the 
fact that through those many conferences my brother's cour- 
tesy to the brilliant older man never failed, nor did he ever lose 
his independent outlook or action. My brother's effort to work 
with Mr. Piatt rather than against him also never failed, and 
many a time I have heard him say: "Mr. Piatt, I would rather 
accept your suggestion of a|i aj^intee than that of any one 
else if you will suggest as good and honorable a man as any one 
else. I wafU to work with you and I know that your great infor- 
matibn about Republican affairs is of enormous value to me, 
but I must reserve my own power of decision in all matters, 
although I hope always to be in accord with you." 

The Rough Riders were always turning up on every occasion, 
or if they did not actually turn up in propria persona^ strange 
letters on many and varied subjects came to my house from 
them. Amongst these letters one arrived when my brother was 
breakfasting with me one morning at my house. The mail that 
morning was unique in more ways than one, for another letter 
arrived with no name and no address on it. Instead of name 
and address there was a drawing of a large set of teeth, and on 
the reverse side of the envelope was written: "Please let Jack 
Smith, 2X1 W. 139th Street, know whether this letter reaches 
its destination. It is a bet and a lot of money hangs in the bal- 



The Rough Rider Storms the Capitol 187 

ance^'I Those strong white teeth, which had been the terror 
of the recreant policonen, were quite as much a factor at the 
Capitol on the hill at Albany. 

In the same mail, as I said, came a very characteristic epistle 
from a Rough Rider, which ran as follows: 

''Dear Colonol: Please come right out to Dakota. They 
ain't treatin me light out here. The truth is, Colonel, they 
have put me in jail and I ain't oug^t to be here at all, cause what 
they say ain't true. Colonel. They say that I shot a lady in 
the eye and it ain't true, Colonel, for I was shootin at my wife 
at the time. — ^I know you will come and get me out of jail right 
off. Colonel, — please huny. J. D." 

How my brother lau^^ied as he turned the manuscript over 
to me, and said: ''Th^ are the most unconscionable children 
that ever were, but oh what fighting men they made I" 

Another amusing incident occurred at the house of my sister, 
where we were all lunching one day, having one of our merry 
family reunions to meet the governor. My sbter had just re- 
turned from Europe with a ''perfect treasure" of an English 
butler, who had not yet become entirely accustomed to the 
vagaries of the Roosevelt family ! We were in the midst of a 
spedaUy merry argument when the door-bell rang and the butler 
left the dining-room to answer the bell. In a few moments he 
returned with a somewhat puzzled expression on his face, and 
leaning over my brother's chair, he said in a stage whisper: 

"There is a there is a ^ewlfefiiaii in the hall, sir 

he says, sir, that his name, sir, is Mr. 'Happy Jack' of 

Arizona." "Why," said my brother, leaping to his feet, "I 
didn't know that 'Happy Jack' was in New York," and he hur- 
riedly left the room to welcome his precious Roug^ Rider. In 
a few moments he came back literaDy doubled up with laughter, 
and burst out: "You know, there has been a great deal in the 
newspapers about the trouble that I have had with importunate 
office seekers, who have forced themselves, in a very disagree- 
able way, into the executive mansion at Albany. Dear old 



1 88 My Brother Theodore Roosevdt 

^Biappy Jack' read, way out in Arisoiia, about the annoyance 
I was having with these people, and he just padded his kit and 
came all the way from Arizona to offer to be 'bouncer-out' of 
the executive mansion I Wasn't that fine of 'Happy Jack'l" 

Several years later, when my brother was Presulent of the 
United States, I was in England and I spent a we^-end with 
the St. Loe Stradi^s in Surrey, where Lord and Lady Cromer 
were also passing Sunday* Lord Cromer having, as a young 
man, visited our Western plains and prairies, adored the stories 
of the Rough Riders, and especially the incident of ''Happy 
Jack's" desire to become ''bouncer-out" of the executive man- 
sion. He loved the story so much that he insisted upon my 
telling it to another English peer, in whom the sense of humor 
was less striking than in Lord Cromer. I shall never forget the 

dreary sensation of struggling to tell Earl S that particular 

story. We were at a rather dreary garden-party, and Lord 
Cromer had presented his friend for the special purpose of having 
me tell this Rough Rider story. Mudi against my will, I ac- 
ceded to his request, and the story seemed to get longer and tonger 
and duller and duller in the telling. Having mentioned the 
''perfect treasure" of a butler in the beginning of the tale, that 

seemed to be the rudder to which Earl S dung throu|^ the 

involutions of Rough Riderism, and as I stumbled on to the ever- 
lengthening end of that unfortunate anecdote, the English peer 
in question turned to me as I fell into silence and said, coldly and 
courteously: "Is that afl?" "Yes," I said hastily, "quite 
all." "Oh I" said my companion, with a sig^ of relief, and then 
feeling that he had not been quite suffidentiy sympathetic, he 
added courteously: "And did the butler stay?" When I re- 
turned with this sequel to the story of "Happy Jack" of Arizona 
and recounted it to my brother, he laughed immoderately and 
said: "I know you must have suffered telling the story, but 
that postscript to the stoiy is worth all the pain you suffered." 

One afternoon in May, I think in the year 1900, my brother 
telqJioned me that he wanted to bring several men to dinner 



The Rough Rider Storms the Capitol 189 

the following day, amongst otherSi Mr. Winston Churchill, 
of England, now so well known all over the world, but then 
still very young, though having had many experiences as a writer 
in connection with the Boer War. He was making a speaking 
tour in America. As usual, the little party grew, and when we 
assembled at dinner the following evening, dear old General 
Wheder (Fif^ting Joe), Mr. St Clair McKdway, of the Brooklyn 
EagU^ and one or two others, I remember being very mudi in- 
terested in Mr. Churchill^s method of probing Governor Roose- 
vdt^s mind. The young Englishman, of mixed parentage, had 
on his American side a certain quality unusual in the average 
Englishman, and the rapid fire of his questioning was very char- 
acteristic of the land of his mother's birth, while a certain ''sure- 
ness" of point of view mi^t be attributed to both countries. 
At one period during the dinner he referred to a certain inddent 
that had occurred in Africa, and rd^gated it to the action which 
took place at Bloemfontebl. My brother very courteously said: 
''I beg your pardon, but that particular incident took place, 
if I am not mistaken, at Magersfontdn.'* The young English- 
man flushed and repeated with determination that it had oc- 
curred at Bloemfontein, and added the fact, which was already 
known to us, that he had been there. My brother again, his 
head a little on one side, and still most courteously, rdterated: 
''I think, Mr. Churchill, if you will stop and think for a moment, 
you will remember that I am rig^t in this instance, and that 
that inddent took place at Magersfontein.*' Mr. Churchill 
paused a moment in the ever-ready flow of his talk and then 
suddenly, with a rather self-consdous frown, said: ''You are 
right, governor, and I am mistaken. It did occur at Magers- 
fontein.*' This anecdote I give simply to show, what is known 
by all y&ko were intimate with my brother, namdy, the extraor- 
dinary accuracy with which he followed the affairs of the day, 
and tibe equally extraordinary memory which retained the de- 
tail of individual occurrences in a most unusual manner. In 
the soft spring air we sat later in the evening by the open win- 



190 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

dow while General Wheeler, son of the South, veteran of the 
Civfl War, and Theodore Roosevelt, son of the North, who had 
so lately led his famous rq;iment through the Cuban jungles 
in dose proximity to General Wheeler, told story after story of 
the way in which, shoulder to shoulder, they had buried the old 
differences in the new co-operation. 

In May, 1899, 1 received one of the comparatively few letters 
which came to me while my brother was governor, for we met 
so frequently that we rarely wrote. The following letter, coming 
as it did at the end of his first year of service as governor of New 
York State, is of special interest. 

'^ Darling Corinne, " he says, ''your letter touched me deeply. 
It was so good to catch a glimpse of you the other day. I 
have accomplished a certain amount for good this j^ear. I want 
to see you and go over it all at length with you. In a way, 
there is a good deal that is disappointing about it because I had 
to act, especially towards the end, againsi the wishes of the ma- 
chine people who have really given me my entire support, and 
with the reformers, labor and otherwise, who are ttvSy against 
me whenever it comes down to anything really important to 
me. We have just returned from a really delightful driving 
trq> to a quaint, clean, little inn at Crooked Lake, some eighteen 
miles off. We drove out there Saturday with every child except 
Quentin, and back again on Sunday. Everything went off with- 
out a hitch and Edith and I enjoyed it as much as the children. 
« . . My love to Douglas and to blessed little Corinne. Ever 
yours, T. R.*' 

Nothing was more discouraging to my brother during his 
long and varied career than the fact that the so-called reformers 
were frequently so visionary that they were rarely, ff ever, to 
be counted upon where an effort to achieve a distinct practical 
purpose was concerned, but the disappointments which he per- 
petually endured from this attribute never induced him to yield 
to the machine politicians unless he felt that by so doing he 
could achieve the higher end for which he always worked. 



The Rough Rider Storms the Capitol 191 

A little later in May of that same yeai, 1899, he writes me 
in patient answer to various questions: ''In reference to my atti- 
tude on the bills that have not passed, there are hundreds of 
people to whom, if I had time, I should explain my attitude, 
but I have not the time. I have the gravest kind of doubts, for 
instance, as to the advantages to the State of our High School 
system, as at present carried out. • « . I strongly believe that 
tiheie has been a tendency amongst some of the best educators 
recently to divert from mechanical trades, people who ought, for 
th^ own sake, to keep in at the mechanical trades." He was 
always so willing to answer my questions, even when pressed by 
many harassing affairs. 

From Oyster Bay, on July 17, 1899, ^^ writes as one freed 
temporarily from the cares of state, and speaking of my eldest 
boy, who was then sbrteen, he says: ''I am afraid it is dull here 
for Teddy. You see, we have no one here quite his age and 
he has passed the time when such a simple pleasure as a scramble 
dewn Cooper's Bluff appears enthralling, although I take him 
down it nevertheless. He is a veiy fine fellow. ... I have 
been giving him infonnation about his hunting trip." Again 
the painstaking effort to be helpful to me and mine, and, indeed, 
all those who needed his help or advice. 

On December x8, having returned to Albany, he plans a 
hiuried trip to New York, and writes characteristically: ''On 
Thursday, December 21st, may I have dinner at seven o'clock? 
If you are going out, do remember, that seriously, I am quite 
as happy with bread and milk as with anything else. Ever yours, 
Theodore Roosevelt." What could be more unusual than the 
governor of New York State being ''quite as happy with bread 
and milk as with anjrthing else"! And I really think he was 
rather happier with bread and milk than with anything else, 
much to the occasional discomfort of the fastidious companions 
who sometimes ran across his rather primitive path. 

My last letter of that year, and, indeed, of the period during 
which he was governor, was late in December, 1899, and it ran 



192 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

as follows: '^On Saturday I find Senator Piatt wants me to 
breakfast with him at the Fifth Avenue." That was one of 
the rare occasions when the unfortunate senator induced the 
governor to part from his sister, and the inevitable presence of 
that sister at the conferences which Senator Piatt quite naturally 
preferred to have alone with the governor. The letter continues: 
''On Friday, at half past d^t, General Greene, Mr. F. S; Witfaer- 
bee, Mr. Fox and Mr. MacFarlane will give you the uneq)ected 
pleasure of breakfasting with you. Is this all rig^t?'' Need- 
less to say, it was all right; only,if I remember correctly, a large 
number were added equally unexpectedly to the four above- 
mentioned gentlemen. Those breakfasts were the most delight* 
ful of meals. My brother's friend Professor William M. Sloane 
in later days was frequently a member pf the breakfast-parties 
at my house, and he used, laughingly, to remark that he won- 
dered why we were all bidden so promptly at half past eig^t 
when the gentleman who so sternly called others from their com* 
fortable beds on cold winter mornings at that matutinal hour 
seemed always able to sit over the breakfast-table until about 
eleven ! That, however, was not the case in those early guberna- 
torial days, for the young governor was pressed with too many 
affairs to yield to his Southern inclination to ''brood" over the 
breakfast-table. 

In later days at the rare periods of comparative Idsure, be- 
tween 1910 and 191 2, the ''half-hours at the breakfast-table" 
were prolonged into several whole hours, and many a rime my 
friend Mrs. Parsons and I have listened to the most enchanting 
discussions on the part of Colonel Roosevelt and Prof essor Sk>ane, 
dealing occasionally with Serb or Rumanian literature or the 
intricacies of Napoleonic history. 

One luncheon during the time that my brother was gov- 
ernor stands out clearly in my mind, owing to an i^mi^Mng in- 
cident connected with it. My dining-room at 422 Madison 
Avenue was small, and fourteen people were the actual limit 
that it could hold. One day, he having told me that he was 



The Rough Rider Storms the Capitol 193 

bringing ten people to lunch, and realizing his ho^table indina- 
tionsy I had had the table set for the limit of fourteen. We were 
already thirteen in the sitting-room when the door-bell rang and, 
looking out of the window, he turned to me with a troubled ex- 
pression and said: ''I think I see two people coming up the front 
stcpSj and that will make fifteen.'' I suddenly decided to be 
unusually firm and said: ''Theodore, I have not places for fifteen; 
you said there would only be ten. I am delighted to have four- 
teen, but you will have to tell one of those two people that they 
will have to go somewhere else for lunch." He went out into the 
hall, and in a moment returned with one of his beloved Roug^ 
Riders and an air of triumph on his face. I whiq>ered, ''Were 
there reaUy two, and who was the other, and what has happened 
to him?" and he whiq>ered back, like a child who has had a 
successful result in some game, "Yes, there were two — ^the other 

was the president of the University of • I told them they 

had to toss up, and the Rough Rider won" — ^this with a chuckle 
of delightl 



HOW THE PATH LED TO THE WHITE HOUSE 



Fr6d6ric Mistnl, the Provencal poeti said of Theodore Roosevelt: 
C'est lui qui donne une nouveDe e^ninoe k niumamt^ 

TOWARD the spring of 1900, while my brother was in his 
second arduous year of activity as govemor of New York 
State, he came one afternoon to my house, as he frequently 
did| for he made headquarters there whenever he was in New 
York. I remember I was confined to my room with an attack 
of grii^. The door-bell rang in the rapid, incisive way which 
always marked his advent, and in a moment or two I heard him 
come bounding up the stairs to my bedroom. He seemed to 
bring the whole world of spring sunshine into the room with him, 
and before I could say an}rthing to greet him he called out: 
^'Pussie, haven't we had fun being govemor of New York State?'' 
I remember the grippe seemed to leave me entirely. My heart 
was full of that elation which he alone could give by his power 
of sharing everything with me. He sat down in a rocking- 
chair by me and began to rock violently to and fro, every now 
and then receding ahnost the whole length of the room as he 
talked, and then rocking toward me with equal rapidity when 
he wished to emphasiz/t some q>ecial point in his oonversation. 
When he stopped for breath, I said laughingly, but with a cer- 
tain serious undertone in the midst of my laughter: ''Theodore, 
are you not going to take a cooq>lete rest some time this sununer ? 
You certainly need iL It has been year after year, one thing 
after another, more and more pressing all the time — civil service 
commissioner, police ooounissioner, assistant secretary of the 
navy, lieutenant-colond, then colonel of the Roug^ Riders, 

194 



How the Path Led to the White House 195 

and all that that campaign meant, and now nearly two years of 
hard work as governor of New York State. Surdy, you must 
take some rest this summer." 

He kx>ked back at me rather as one of my little boys would 
look if I spoke to them somewhat harshly, and answered in a 
very childlike way: '^Yes, of course you are right. I do mean 
to take a rest of one whole month this summer." I said: ''That 
isn't very much— one month, but still it is better than nothing. 
Now, do you reaUy mean that you are going to rest for one whole 
month ? " '' Yes/' he answered, as if he were doing me the great* 
est possible favor, ''I really mean to rest one whole month. I 
don't mean to do one single thing during that month--ezcq;)t 
write a life of Oliver Cromwell." How I laughed I What an 
idea of complete rest— to write a life 6f Oliver Cromwell I And 
write a life of Oliver Cromwell he did during that period of 
complete rest, but before he was able to do it there came many 
another stirring event and change in the outlook of his existence. 

Messis. Piatt and Odell, supposedly the arbiters of the fate 
of every New York State governor, agreed that two years of 
Theodore Roosevelt in the Executive Mansion at Albany was 
quite enough, and that come what mi^t, he should not have 
another term, and so they bent all their subtle political acumen 
toward the achievement of their wish to remove him. They 
would, however, have been thwarted in their purpose had not 
the Western part of our country decided also that Theodore 
Roosevelt's name was necessary on the presidential tidiet, to 
be headed, for a second time, by William McEinley. 

The young governor, deeply absorbed in the many reforms 
which he had inaugurated in the Empire State, was an}rthing 
but willing to be, as he fdt he would be, buried in Washington 
as vice-president, but as the time drew near for the Rq>ublican 
Convention of June, 1900, more and more wei^t was thrown 
in the balance to persuade him to accept the nomination. 

I have frequently said in these pages that one of the most 
endearing characteristics of my brother was his desire to have 



196 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

my sister and myself share in all of his interests, in his gloiy, 
or in his disappointments, and so, when the convention at Phila- 
de^)hia met, and as the contending forces struggled aromid him, 
he td^aphed to my husband and myself, who were then at 
our country home in New Jersey, and bagged us to come on to 
Philadelphia, and be near him during the fray. Needless to 
say, we hurried to his side. 

I shall always remember arriving at that hotel in Phila- 
delphia. How hot those June days were, and how noisy and 
crowded the corridors of the hotel were when we arrived I Blar- 
ing bands and marching delegations seemed to render the hot 
air even more stiffing, and I asked at once to be shown to the 
room where Governor Roosevelt was. A messenger was sent 
with me, and up in the elevator and throu^ circuitous passages 
we went, to a comer room overlooking a square. We knocked, 
but there was no answer, and I softly opened the door, and there 
sat my brother Theodore at a distant window with a huge 
volume upon his knees. The soft air was blowing in the window, 
his back was turned to the door, and he was as absolutely de- 
tached as if vice-presidential nominations, political warfare, 
illicit and corrupt methods of all kinds in public life were things 
not known to his philosc^hy. I tiptoed up behind him and leaned 
over his shoulder, and saw that the great volume spread out 
before him was the '^Histoiy of Josephus'M I could not but 
laug^ aloud, for it seemed too quaint to think that he, the centre 
of all the political animosity, sJiould be quietly apart, perfectly 
absori>ed in the history of the Jews of a long-past day. As I 
laughed, he turned and jumped to his feet, and in a moment 
Josephus was as much a thing of the past as he actually was, 
and Theodore Roosevelt, the loving brother, the humorous 
philosopher, the acute politician, was once more in the saddle. 
In a moment, in a masterly manner, he had sketched the 
situation for me: 'Yes, Piatt and Odell did want to eject him, 
that was true, but it wasn't only that. The West felt strongly, 
and the Middle West as strongly, that his name was needed on 



How the Path Led to the White House 197 



the presidential tid^et. No, he didn't want to give up a second 
teim as governor of New York State; he hated the thought of a 
vice-presidential burial-party, but what was he to do? He 
didn't really know himself/ 

At that moment, without any ceremony, the door was thrown 
open, and in marched the delegation from Kansas. Fife and 
drum and bugle headed the delegation with more than discor- 
dant noises. Round and round the room they went, monoto- 
nously singing to the accompaniment of the above raucous in- 
struments: ''We want Teddy, we want Teddy, we want Teddy." 
My brother held up his hand, but nothing seemed to stop them. 
Over and over again they filed solemnly around that sitting- 
room, and finally, forming in a straight Hne, they metaphorically 
presented arms, and stood for a moment sQently bdbre him.. 
He stepped nearer to them and, with a somewhat anxious tone 
in his voice, said: ''Gentlemen of Kansas, I know that you only 
want what is best for the oountiy, and incidentally what you 
think is best for me; but, my friends, I wish you would with- 
draw your desire that I should be the candidate for the vice- 
presidency. I want another tenn as governor of New York 
State. I have initiated a good many reforms that I think 
would hel^ my native state. I have made many appoint- 
ments, and the people I have appointed would fed that I have 
gone back on them if I can't be there to he^. them with their 
work. I am sure I could be of more use to my country as gov- 
ernor of New York State than as vice-president. I wish you 
would change your minds and help me to do the thing which I 
think is the best thing to do." The delegation from Kansas 
looked the pleader gently but firmly in the eye. The fife and 
drum and bugle struck tq> its monotonous sound again. The 
leader of the Kansas delegation turned, and, with all his fol- 
lowers, once more they marched slowly and steadfastly around 
that room, making no answer to Governor Roosevelt excq>t the 
indomitable refrain of "We want Teddy, we want Teddy, we 
want Teddy,'' which sounded for a long ^ribile down the corridor* 



198 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

As we listened to their retreating footstq)6y he turned to me 
with a look of mingled amusement and despair in his eyes, and 
said: ''What can I do with such people? But aren't they good 
feUows!" 

And so, as is now well known to histoiyi the Kansas delega- 
tion and other like delegations had their way, Mr. Piatt and 
Mr. Odell thought they had their way too, and at one of the most 
ezdting conventions at which I have ever been present — domi- 
nated in masterful fashion by the unique personality of Maik 
Hanna— Theodore Roosevelt was made the nominee for the 
second place on the ticket of the Republican party of 1900. 
One little incident occurred the next morning which I have 
always felt had a certain prophetic quality about iL An article 
appeared in one of the Philadelphia papers, signed by that 
inimitable humorist, the brilliant philosopher, Peter Dunne, 
alias ''Mr. Dooley.'' I wish I could find the artid^— I kept it 
for a long while*-but this is about the way it ran: 

''Tiddy Rosenfeklt came to the Convintion in his Rough Ri- 
der suit and his sombrero hat and his khaki clothes, trying to look 
as inconspichuous as possible, and as soon as he got there Piatt 
fill on his chist and Oddl sat on his stummick and they tried 
to crush him and squeeze the life out of him. And they lUMk 
they have done it, ajid perhi^ they have, but, Hinnessey, tli^ 
needn't be quite so sure, for Tkldy Rosenfeklt will get some- 
where no matter what happens, even though the path Kes through 
thecimiteryl** 

Whether ''Mr. Dooley'' simply meant that as vice-presi- 
dents had always bem supposed to be dead men as far as future 
preferment was conoemed, or whether, with prophetic touch, he 
visualized the horror that was to come, and the way in whidi 
Theodore Roosevdt's path to a hig^ position actually did He 
"through the cemetery," I know not, but those were appnud- 
mately the very words which iq)peared in that Philadelphia 
newqpaper the morning after Roosevdt was nominated as caiidi- 
date for vice-presklent on the McKinley tidiet 



How the Path Led to the White House 199 

Later in the autumn he started on one of the most strenuous 
campaigns of his life, and swung around the countiy asking 
for Rq>ublican support for William McKinley's second term. 
Just before Election day he was to return to New York to 
make his final address at Madison Square Garden. As usual, 
he was to spend the night before and the night of the meet- 
ing at my house. Just before he was to arrive I received a 
telegram saying that his voice was entirely gone from the strain 
of wedcs of ^)eaking| and would I please have a throat doctor 
at the house on his arrival to treat his throat Of course I ar- 
ranged that this should be done, and he arrived, bright and gay, 
although distinctfy hoaise. .The doctor treated him, and he 
was ordered to keep perfectly still during the evening. We 
went tq> to the library after dinner, and I aaid to him: ''Now, 
Theodore, we must oidy have a few minutes' taSk^ and then you 
must go to bed.'' ''But," he sakl, "I must tdl yon a few of 
the very funny incidents that happened on my tr^." And with 
that he began — my husband and I feeling very conscience- 
stricken, but so fascinated that we had not the strength of mind 
to stop him. Suddenly, to our perfect suipiise, the early morn- 
ing light crept in through the windows, the milk-wagons began 
to rattle in the streets, and we realised that the dawn of an- 
other day had come, and that the future vioe^resident had out- 
raged his doctor's orders and had talked all nig^t kngl And 
sudi stories as they were, too; I shall never forget them. One 
after another, he pictured to us the various audiences, the won* 
derful receptions, the unique chairmen of the different meetings. 
There was always a "bellowing" chairman, as he expressed it, 
or else one whose ineflFectual vcnce did not reach even the first 
drde of the huge audiences that gathered everywhere to hear 
him. Out in the Far West ei^t-horse vdiicks would meet 
the trains on which the nominees travelled, and inadvertent 
bands would blow in the ears of "shotgun" teams that had never 
been hitched up before, with such astounding results as the com- 
plete loss of the wbold team at once, which necessitated the drag- 



200 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

ging of the carriage by ardent cowboy admirers, or, worse luck, 
eventuated in terrifying runaways, which, however, never seemed 
to produce anything but casual discomfort 

Mr. Curtis Guild, of Boston, and Judge John Proctor Clarke 
accompanied Governor Roosevelt on this trip, and on one occa- 
sion the aforesaid '^ bellowing" chairman introduced my brother 
as ''one whose name was known from shore to shore and whose 
life stoiy was part of every fireside, and whose deeds were house- 
hold words from the Atlantic to the Pacific." Finding that this 
introduction was greeted with vociferous applause, he then made 
use of the same extravagant exaggeration in introducing Mr. 
Guild. The only trouble in the latter case was that, after ster- 
torously rq)eating the aforesaid introduction, the chairman 
suddenly forgot the name of the second speaker, ''so well known 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific," and turned with solemn dis- 
approval to ' the refined New England statesman, whispering 
hoarsely: "What in h — is your name, anyway?" 

Such were the tales with which he regaled us that too-short 
nis^t in November, 1900. Any other man, having so disobeyed 
the doctor's stem commands to refrain from using his voice, 
would have been punished the following evening by not having 
any voice at all; but, on the contrary, his tones were clear and 
strong, his personality vital and inspiring, as he leaned from the 
platform toward the thousands of cheering human beings in the 
great Madison Square Garden, to put the finishing touch on thatt 
stirring campaign for the second nomination of McEinley. 

The inauguration in Washington, in March, 1901, had a 
peculiar charm about it. Perhaps one felt this charm especially 
because of the youth of the ^ce-President and of his wife, and 
because of the contrast between those two happy young people 
and the more serious President, weighed down as he was with 
many cares, the greatest of which was his loving anxiety for his 
fragile little wife. 

Because we were the sisters of the Vice-President, Mrs. Mc- 
Kinley sent for my sister, Mrs. Cowles, and me just after the 



How the Path Led to the White House 201 

inauguration, and I remember very well the touching quality 
of that dainty personality, in whose faded face was the remains 
of exquisite beauty. She received us up-stairs in her bedroom, 
and by her side was a table on which was a little Austrian vase 
in wludi bloomed one superb red rose. As we sat down she 
pointed to the rose with her delicate little hand, and said softly: 
^'My dearest love brou^t me that rose. He always brings me 
a rose every day, Mrs. Robinson.'' And then, a faint smile flit- 
ting over her face, she said: ''My dearest love is veiy good to 
me. Eveiy evening he plays d^t or ten games of cribbage 
with me, and I think he sometimes lets me win.'' I remember 
the feeling in my heart when she spoke those words, as I thou^t 
of the man in the White House, oppressed with many cares; 
even, perhaps, at the time when the shadow of the wim^ with 
Spain hung over his troubled head, sitting down with gentle 
affection and quiet setf-control to play ''dg^t or ten games of 
cribbage," ''one for his nob, and two for his heels," with the 
pathetic little creature from whom the tender love of his early 
youth had never swerved. 

The scenes outside of the White House connected with the 
young Vice-President were veiy diff erenL In the home of my 
sister, Mrs. Cowles, where we all stayed for the inauguration, 

quaint happenings occurred. A certain Captain , a great 

admirer of my brother, telegraphed that he was sending from 
Thorle/s florist shop in New York a "floral tribute" to be 
erected wherever the ^ce-President was staying. My sister's 
house was moderate in size, but that made no difference to Cap- 
tain . That "floral tribute" had to be erected. It cost, 

if I remember rightly, in the ne^borhood of three thousand 
dollars. (My brother laug^iingly but pathetically said it was 
about half of his income at the time, and he wished the tribute 
could have been added to the income.) It had to be erected, 
and erected it was. It arrived in long boxes, painfully sugges- 
tive of coffins, much to the delight of the young members of the 
family, who were also staying with' my always hoq>itable sis- 



202 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

ter. TherCi for a whole day, three men worked haggardly 
building the ''tribute/' until the whole front room of my sis- 
ter's house (which was much in demand for large numbers of 
delegations who wished to pay their respects to my brother) 
was fiUed in every nook and cranny by this enormous and mar- 
vellous structure, which reached from wall to wall and up to the 
ceiling. The overworked and tired men who created it were so 
exhausted by the questions of the small members of the Roose- 
velt and Robinson famity that toward the aid of the afternoon 
they sent word to Mis. Cowles that unless those children were 
sent out of the house^ that "tribute" would never be finished. 
Finished it was, however, and we were almost suffocated by the 
sweetness of its scents, and it was all that we could do, in spite 
of our spontaneous gaiety, to rise above the semifunereal feeling 
that this mass of conventional floweis produced upon the at- 
mosphere of the whole house. 

The inaugural ball was really a charming si^^t, but was 
shadowed for the presidential party by the fact that Mrs. Mc- 
£inley was not well a short while before it took place. She was 
able to be present, however, in her box, but the shade of sadness 
was heavy on the President's face; and the people, for that veiy 
reason, turned with peculiar pleasure to the care-free younger 
couple, who were asked to come do¥m from the box, and to walk 
it stately fashion once around the room, to the infinite admira- 
tion of the many interested observers. 

After the inauguration my brother retired quietly to Oyster 
Bay, and it was from there on April 15, 1901, that he wrote me 
one of his most charact^tic notes. At that time, as in the 
days of his govemorshq>, he would frequently notify his friends 
to meet him and lunch with him at my house, much to my de- 
U^t. On this particular occasion, he had invited so incongruous 
an assortment of people that he decided that one or two 
more equally incongruous would be advisable, and writes 
as follows: '^Darling Coriime: Inasmuch as we are to have 
Cocky Locky, Henny Penny and Goos^ Poos^ at hmch. 



How the Path Led to the White House 203 

why omit Foxy Lozy? I am anxious to see Dr. R and I 

do hope you will ask him to lunch on Thursday also. Ever 
yours, T. R." 

That lunch-party proved to be a great success, as did various 
others later; and then came a moment, for me, of serious anxiety 
when my eldest boy was stricken with diphtheria in coU^. At 
once many loving letters came from Oyster Bay — and later, when 
the young freshman had recovered from his illness, and I was 
at my home on Orange Mountain, the newly inaugurated Vice- 
President acceded to my wish that he should come to my home, 
where my husband and I had lived all our young married Hfe, 
and be the hero and excitement of the neighborhood at a recep- 
tion on my bwn. It proved a hot day in July, but his pleasure 
in meeting all my friends was unabated, and he took q)ecial 
interest in my butcher and grocer and fish man and ice man, 
and the kindly farming people who had been devoted to my 
husband's mother as wdl as to me for many years. At the ex^ 
of the day he resuscitated with tender care an old veteran of 
the Civil War, who had stumbled up the hill in the blinding heat 
to pay his req>ects to the colood of the Rou{^ Riders, now Vice- 
President of the United States. 

That same summer he engineeied a sailing ti^ for his little 
boys and mine, and writes me in answer to a request from me to 
know bow much I owed lor the tap: ^' About $12 would cover 
oon^>letely your boys' share of the expenses. It » just Eke you 
to want to pay it, but I would like to feel that for this trivial 
matter your two boys were my guests. So if you don't mind, 
I am going to ask you to sacrifice your feeliAgs. As I have told 
you the extent of the obligation, and it is surely net heavy, let 
me continue to stand as the munificent hosti" 

Once that summer during his ^'month's rest," of wbkh, I 
have already spoken at the beginning of this chapter, I sptmt 
a nig^t at Sagamore Hill, and my sister-in-law, Mrs. Roosevelt, 
said to me that she was anxious about my brother. The ''rest" 
did not quite agree with him, and the proq)ect of a more or less 



204 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

sedentary Hf e in his new position weighed on the active initia- 
tive of his mind. 

A little later they went to a hunting-lodge in the Adiiondacks, 
and all the world knows what happened on September 6, 1901. 
Then came the great anxiety as to whether Mr. McKinley would 
recover from the assassin's onslaught, and on September 14, he 
succumbed to the weakness engendered by his woimd. While 
the dramatic drive from the Adirondack Mountains, where Theo- 
dore Roosevelt was foimd, was in process, I, the only member 
of the Roosevelt family near New York, was inimdated in my 
Orange Mountain home by reporters. That evening after re- 
ceiving a number of rq)orters and giving them what slight in- 
f oimation I could give, I said that I could not stand the strain 
any longer, that I could not be interviewed any more, and with 
the dear cousin, John Elliott, who had been our early childhood 
companion, and who happened to be visiting me, I went into 
my writing-room, shut the door to the world outside, and a 
strange coincidence occurred. My sister-in-law, Mrs. Theodore 
Roosevelt, had shortly before returned to me a number of child- 
hood letters which we had exchanged, first as little children, 
and then as growing girls, for we had always been very intimate 
friends. These letters were in a box on my writing-table, and 
I said to my cousin John: ''Let us forget all these terrible things 
that are happening, and for a moment, at least, go back into 
our merry, care-free past. Here are these letters. I am going 
to pick one out at random and see how it will remind us of our 
childhood days." 

So speaking, I put my hand into the box and proceeded to 
draw out a letter. Curiously enough, as I opened the yellow 
envelope and the sheets fell from it, I saw that it was dated 
from Washington in 1877, and looking more closely I read aloud 
the words: 

"Dearest Corirme: Today, for the first time, I went to the 
White House. Oh, how much I wished for you. It seemed so 
wonderful to me to be in the old mansion which had been the 



How the Path Led to the White House 205 

home of President Lincoln, and which is so connected with all 
our coimtry'd history. It gave me a feeling of awe and excite- 
ment. I wish you could have been here to share the feeling with 
me, for I don't suppose it is likely that we shall ever be in the 
White House together, and it would have been so interesting 
to have exchanged our memories of things that had happened 
in that wonderful old house. But how unlikely it is that you 
or I shall ever come in contact with anything connected with 
the White House." 

As I read these words, I exclaimed with astonishment, for it 
did seem a curious freak of fate that almost at the very moment 
that I was reading the lines penned by the ffil of fifteen, an un- 
expected turn of the wheel had made that same young ffil the 
lady of the White House. 



XI 
HOME LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

Unoowned the httm, 

Where truth and courage meet, 

The citizen alone confronts the land. 

A man whose dxeamf ul, valiant mind conceives 
High purpose, consecrated to his race. 

—Margaret Ridgdy Partridge. 

THE deed of the cowardly assassin had done its work. WO- 
liam McKinley was dead; the young ^ce-Ptesident had 
made the hazardous trip from the heart of the Adiron- 
dack Mountains, had taken the solemn oath in Buffalo, had 
followed the body of his chief to the final resting-place, and had 
returned to Washington. From Washington he telegraphed 
to my husband and myself, with the thought which he always 
showed, and told us that as Mrs. Roosevelt was attending to 
last important matters at Sagamore, she could not be with him 
the day he moved into the White House, and that he was very 
anxious that not only my sister, Mrs. Cowles, and her husband, 
but that we also should dine with him the first night that he 
slept in the old mansion. So we went on to Washington, and 
were with him at that first meal in the house for which he had 
such romantic attachment because it had sheltered the hero 
of his boyhood and manhood, Abraham Lincoln. As we sat 
around the table he turned and said: ''Do you realize that this 
is the birthday of our father, September 22? I have realized it 
as I signed various papers all day long, and I feel that it is a 

206 



Home Life in the White House 207 

good amen that I begin my duties in this house on this day. I 
fed as if my father's hand were on my shoulder, and as if there 
were a apedal blessing over the life I am to lead here/' Almost 
as he finished this sentenoe, the ooffee was passed to us, and at 
that time it was the habit at the White House to pass with the 
coffee a little boutonni^ to each g^tleman. As the flowers 
were passed to the President, the one given to him was a yellow 
saffnmia rose. His face flushed, and he turned again and said: 
^'Is it not strangel This is the rose we all connect with my 
father." My sister and I reqxmded eagerly that many a time 
in the past we had se» our father pruning die rose-bush of 
saff ronia roses with qiedal care. He always picked one for his 
buttonhole from that bush, and whenever we gave him a rose, 
we gave hhn (me of those. Again my brother said, with a very 
serious look on his face, "I think there is a blessing connected 
fiith this," and surety it did seem as if there were a blessing con- 
nected with those years of Theodore Roosevelt in the White 
House; those merry happy years of family life, those ardent, 
loving years of public service, those i^Iendid, peaceful years of 
mtemational amity--a blessing there surely was over that house. 

Nothing could have been harder to the tempoament of Theo- 
dore Roosevdt than to have come ''through the coneteiy," as 
-Peter Dunne said in his prophetic article, to the high position 
of Fiekidcnt of the United States. What he had achieved in the 
past was sbsolutdy throng his own merits. To him to come 
to any position thitMig^ ''dead men's shoes'' was peculiarly 
distasteful; but during the early years of his ocaqMncy of the 
White House, feeUng it his duty so to do, he strove in every pos- 
sible way to fulfil the policies of his predecessor, retaining his 
appointees and working with conscientious loyalty as much as 
possibk akmg the Knes laid down by President McKinley. 

That first winter of his incumbent was one of fecial inter- 
est Many were the difficulties in his path. England, and, in- 
deed, all foreign countries were watching him with deep interest. 
I realised that fact in a very special way as that veiy q>ring of 



2o8 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

1902 I took my young daughter abroad to place her at a French 
school directed by Mademoiselle Souvestre in England. It was 
the spring when preparations were being made for the coro- 
nation of King Edward VII, and because of the fact that I was 
the sister of the President of the United States, I was received 
with great courtesy. Our dear friend Mr. Jo8q>h H. Choate 
was then ambassador to England. Mrs. Choate presented me 
at court, and the King paid me the unusual compliment— out 
of respect to my brother— of leaving the dais on which he and 
the Queen stood, and came forward to greet me x>ersonally in 
order to ask for news of my brother. Special consideration 
was shown to me in so many ways that when Mr. Robinson and 
I were visiting Edinburgh, it seemed in no way imusual that we 
should be invited to Holyrood Castle to the reception gtvtsi by 
the lord high commissioner, Lord Leven and MelviUe. It so 
happened that we were in Edinburgh during that week of fes- 
tivity when the lord high commissioner of Scotland, appointed 
as special rq>resentative of the King of Great Britain, holds court 
in the old castle as though he were actually the King. 

We had dined with friends before the reception, and were 
therefore late in reaching the castle, and were literally the last 
people at the end of the long queue approaching the dais on 
which Lord and Lady Leven and Melville stood. As King Ed* 
ward had himself 8tq>ped forward to meet me in Buckingham 
Palace, I was not surprised when Lord Leven and Melville 
8tqq)ed down from the dais, and I eq>ected hhn also to ask news 
of my brother, the President of the United States, as Eing Ed* 
ward had done, but to my great surprise, and be it confessed 
intense pleasure, I heard the brd hif^ commissioner q)eak as 
follows: ''Mrs. Douglas Robinson, you have been greeted with 
q)ecial courtesy in our country because of your dfatinguished 
brother, the President of the United States, but I am greeting 
you with even greater interest because of your father, the first 
Theodore Roosevelt. You probably do not remember, for you 
were a little girl at the time, that a raw-boned young Scotch- 



Home Life in the White House 209 

man named Ronald Leslie MelviUe came long ago to New York 
and was much at your home, having had letters of intzoduction 
to your father as one of the men best fitted to teach him the 
modem philanthropic methods used in America. Only to-day/' 
he continued, '^I told the children of Edinbuigh, assembled, 
as is the custom, to listen to the lord high commissioner, that 
the father of the present President of the United States was the 
first man who taught me to love my feUow men/' 

My heart was very full as I made my courtesy and answered 
the lord hig^ commissioner. Before he let me pass on he said, 
with a charming smile: ''If you and Mr. Robinson will come to- 
morrow to lunch with us quietly I will take you to Lord Dam- 
ley's room, which is my dresstng-room during the week of Holy- 
rood f esthdties, and on my dressing-table you will see the photo- 
graph of your father, for I never go anywhere without it." I 
accq>ted the invitation gladly, and the next day we went to 
Holyrood Castle, lunched informally with the delightful chatclain 
and chatelaine, and I was taken, as the former promised, to see 
Lord Damle^s room, where my father's face smiled at me from 
the dressing-table. My brother loved to hear me tell this story, 
and I fed that it is not amiss to indude it in any recollections 
concerning my brother, for he was truly the spmt of my father 
xeincamate. 

In May, 190a, Mrs. Roosevdt writes that ^'Theodore-' is 
just about to leave for a hunting tr^, which she hopes wiD '' rest " 
him. (The rest the year before, of writing a Hfe of Oliver CrcMn- 
wdl, had not been made quite strenuous enoug^for a real restl) 
Later he returned and made a famous i^>eeGh bi Providence, a 
speech qxMJi-making, and recognized as sudi by an Enj^ish 
newi^M^ier, The Morning Post of August 27, 1902, a dSf^ing 
from which I have at hand^ and which runs as fdhms: 

^'Our New York corre^x>ndent annmmced yesterday that 
President Roosevdt's great i^>eech at Providence on the sub* 
ject of ^Trusts' is regarded on all sides and by both parties as 
an absolutdy qx)ch-making event. This is not surprising to 



r 



2IO My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

those who have studied the oonditioiis of American politics, 
and the merits of the particular economic question involved, 
so far as they are intelligible to us, or last but by no means least, 
the character and personality of President Roosevelt. It would 
now seem that the people of the United States are at the parting 
of the ways between the corrupt, old political system and a newer, 
manlier, honester concqption of public rights and duties." 

Perhaps this sentence foreshadows more than any other 
oontemporaty e]q>ression the enormous instrument for honesty 
in high places in the history of his country which it was Theo- 
dore Roosevelt's destiny to be. 

Mingled with these great cares and far-reaching issues came, 
later, brighter moments, and it was about that time that during 
an inter^ of play at Oyster Bay, he started the custom of his 
famous '' obstacle walks.'' He would gather all the little cousins 
and his own children and mine, if I could bring them down for 
a week-end, on Sunday afternoon at Sagamore Hill (even an 
occasional "grown person" was considered sufficiently adven- 
turous to be included in the party), and would start on one of 
the strenuous scrambles which he called an "obstacle walk." 
It was more like a game than a walk, for it had rules and regula- 
tions of its own, the principal one being that each participant 
should follow the presidential leader "over or thxough" any 
obstacle but never "around." There were sometimes as many 
lis twenty little children as we stood on the top of Cooper's Bhiff, 
a hig^ sand-bank overlooking the Soimd, ready for the word 
<'go," and all of them children were agog with ezdtement Ht the 
probable obstacles in their path. As we stood on the brink of 
the big sand-bank, my brother would turn with an amused 
twinkle in his eye and say: "There is a little path down the side, 
but I always jump off the top." This, needless to say, was in 
the form of a challenge, indiich he always accompanied by a lau^ 
and a leap into the air, landing on whatever portion of his body 
happened to be the one that struck the bwer part of the sand- 
bank first Then there would be a shout from the children, and 



Home Life in the White House 211 

every one would imitate his method of progress, I myself, gen- 
erally the only other grown person, bringing up the rear rather 
reluctantly but determined not to have to follow the other im- 
portant rule of the game, which was that if you could not succeed 
in going "over or through" that you should put your metiq>hor- 
ical tan between your physical legs and return home. You were 
not jeered at, no disagreeable remark was directed at you, but 
your sense of failure was humiliation enough. 

Having reached the foot of the bank in this promiscuous 
fashion, we would all sit on stones and take off our shoes and 
stockings to shake the quantities of sand therefrom, and then 
start on the real business of the day. With a sense of great ex- 
citement we watched our leader and the devious course he pur- 
sued while finding the most trying obstacles to test our cour- 
age. I remember one day seeing in our path an eq>ecially 
unpleasant-looking little bathing-house with a very steep roof 
like a Swiss chalet. I looked at it with sudden dismay, for I 
realized that only the very young and slender could chin up its 
slq>pery sides, and I hoped that the leader of the party would 
deflect his course. Needless to say, he did not, and I can still see 
the somewhat sturdy body of the then President of the United 
States hurling itself at the obstruction and with singular agility 
rliinning himself to the top and sliding down on the other side. 
The children stormed it with whoops of delight, but I thought 
I had come to my Waterloo. Just as I had dedded that the mo- 
ment had come for that ignominious retreat of which I have 
already spoken, I happened to notice a large rusty nail on one 
side oif the unfinished shanty, and I thought to myself: ''If I 
can get a footing on that nail, then perhaps I can get my hands 
to the top of that sloping roof, and if I can get my hands there, 
perhaps by Herculean efforts I too can chin myself over the 
other side.'' Nothing succeeds like success, for having performed 
this almost impossible feat and having violently returned into 
the midst of my anxious group of fellow pedestrians, very much 
as the little boy does on his sled on the steepest snow-dad hill. 



212 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

I was greeted with an ovation such as I have never received in 
later life for the most difficult achievement, literary or phil- 
anthropic! From that moment I was regarded as one really 
fit to take part in the beloved '^obstacle walks," which were, I 
cannot help but think, strong factors in planting in the hearts 
and characters of the children who thus f oUowed their leada:, the 
indomitable pluck and determination which helped the gallant 
sons and nephews of Theodore Roosevelt to go undauntedly 
''over the top" on Flanders Field. 

"Over or through, never around" — a good motto, indeed, 
for Young America, and one which was always exemplified by 
that American of Americans, my brother, Theod(»:e Roosevelt. 

At the end of October that year, his affectionate concern 
for me (for I was delicate at the time) takes form in a lovely letter 
in which, after giving me the best of advice, and acknowledging 
humorously that no one ever really took advice offered, he 
says: "Heaven bless you always whether you take my advice 
or not." He never failed to show loving and tender interest in 
the smallest of my pleasures or anxieties, nor did he and Mrs. 
Roosevelt ever fail to invite, at my instigation, elderly family 
friends to lunch at the White House, or g]adly to send me auto- 
graphs for many little boys, or checks to "Dolly," the nurse of 
his childhood, whose advanced years I superintended. 

In April, 1903, he started on a long trqp, and at that time felt 
that, as the years of his inherited incumbency were drawing 
to a dose, he could forward his own gospel. A htunorous refer- 
ence comes in a letter just before he starts, in which he says: 
"I was immensely amused with Monroe's message [my second 
son, then at St. Paul's School] about boxing and confirmation, 
the one evidently having some occult connection with the other 
in his mind. Give him my love when you write. • • • Well, 
I start on a nine-weeks' trip tomorrow, as hard a trq> as I have 
ever undertaken, with the sole excqption of the canvass in 1900. 
As a whole, it will be a terrific strain, but there will be an occa- 
sional day which I shall enjoy." 



Home Life in the White House 213 

Again, as he actually starts on that "hard'' trq>, he sends me 
a little line of never-failing love. ''White House, April i, 1903. 
[This in his own writing.] Darling Pussie: Just a last line of 
Good-bye. I am so glad your poor hand is better at last. Love 
to dear old Douglas. The house seems strange and lonely with- 
out the dbildren. Ever yours, T. R." Those little notes in 
his own dear handwriting, showing always the loving thought, 
are especially precious and treasured. 

After that exhausting journey, rq>lete with many thrilling 
experiences, he returns to Oyster Bay for a little rest, and writes 
with equal interest of the beautiful family life which was always 
led there. My boy Stewart was with him at the time, and he 
speaks of him affectionately in connection with his own ''Ted,'' 
who was Stewart's intimate friend: 

''Stewart, Ted and I took an hour and a half barebadc ride 
all together. Ted is always longing that Stewart should go off 
on a hunting tr^ with him. I should be delighted to have them 
go off now. Although I think no doubt they would get into 
scrapes, I have also no doubt that they would g^t out of them. 
We have had a lovely summer, as lovely a summer as we have 
ever passed. All the children have enjoyed their various ac- 
tivities, and we have been a great deal with the children, and in 
addition to that, Edith and I have ridden on horseback much 
together, and have frequently gone off for a day at a time in a 
Kttie row boat, not to speak of the picnics to which everybody 
went. 

"In the intervals I have chopped industriously. I have seen 
a great many people who came to call upon me on political busi- 
ness. I have had to handle my correq>ondence of course, and 
I have had not a few wearing matters of national policy, ranging 
from the difficulties in Turkey to the scandals in the Post Office. 
But I have had three months of rest, of holiday, by comparison 
with what has gone before. Next Monday I go back to Wash- 
ington, and for the thirteen months following, there will be 
mighty littie let-up to the strain. But I enjoy it to the full. 



214 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

''What the outcome will be as far as I am personally con- 
cemedy I do not know. It looks as if I would be renominated; 
whether I shall be re-elected I haven't the slightest idea. I know 
there is bitter opposition to me from many sources. Whether 
I shall have enou^ support to overcome this opposition, I cannot 
tell. I suppose few Presidents can form the slightest idea whether 
their policies have met with approval or not Certainly / can- 
not. But as far as I can see, these policies have been right, and 
I hope that time will justify them. If it doesn't why I must 
abide the fall of the dice, and that is all there is to it Everyours, 
T. R.'' 

That letter is very characteristic of his usual attitude. Strain, 
yes; hard work, yes; but equally '' I enjoy it to the full" 1 
Equally also was he wiUing to abide by the ''fall of the dice/' 
having done what he fully believed to have been the rig^t thing 
for the country. 

That December, the day after Christmas, he writes 
again: 

"Darling Sister: I so enjoyed seeing you here, but I have 
been so worried about you. I am now looking forward to Stew- 
art's coming, and to seeing Helen and Ted. But I do wish you 
would take a rest 

''We had a delightful Christmas 3resterday, just such a Christ- 
mas as thirty or forty 3rears ago we used to have under Father's 
and Mother's supervision in 28 Eiist 20th Street At seven all 
the dbSdren came in to open the big, bulging stockings in our 
bed; Kermit's terrier, Allan, a most friendly little dog, adding 
to the children's delight by occupying the middle of the bed. 
From Alice to Quentin, each child was absorbed in his or her 
stocking, and Edith certainly managed to get the most won- 
derful stocking toys. • . . Then after breakfast we all went 
into the library, where the bigger toys were on separate tables 
for the children. I wonder whether there ever can come in life 
a thrill of greater exaltation and rapture than that which comes 
to one, say between the ages of six euad fourteen, when the library 



Home Life in the White House 215 

doors are thrown open and one walks in to see all the gifts, like 
a materialized fairyland, airayed on one's own special table. 

"We had a most pleasant Itmch at Bamie's [our sister, Mrs. 
Cowles]. She had given a delightful Christmas tree to the chil- 
dren the afternoon before, and then I stopped in to see Cabot 
and Nannie [Senator and Mrs. Lodge]. It was raining so hard 
that we could not walk or ride with any comfort, so Roly For- 
tescue, Ted and I played 'single stick' in the study later. All 
of our connections and all of the Lodge connections were at dinner 
with us, twenty-two in all. After the dinner we danced in the 
^East Room,' closing with the Virginia Reel, — ^Edith looking 
as young and as pretty, and dancing as well as ever. 

"It is a dear, cold morning, and Edith and I and all the chilr 
dren (save Quentin) and also Bob Ferguson and Cabot are about 
to start for a ride. Your loviog brother." 

Such were all Christmases at the White House; such was 
the spirit of the White House in those days. 

During the early years of my brother's presidency, my hus- 
band and I always spent Thanksgiviog at the White House, 
and joined in festivities very much like the Christmas ones^ 
including the gay Virginia reel, which was also part, always, of 
the Thanksgiving ceremony. After they bought a little place 
in Virginia, they spent their Thanksgjiving aniuversary there. 

During the foUowing winter, I visited the White House more 
frequently than usual, and enjoyed the special ceremonies such 
as the dq>lomatic dinner, judicial recq>tion, etc, and I used 
to station myself near the President when he was receiving the 
long line of eager fellow citizens, and watch his method of wel- 
coming his guests. Afanost always he would have some spe- 
cial word for each, and although the long line would not be held 
back, for he was so rapid in speech that the individual welcome 
would hardly take a moment, still almost every person who 
passed him would have had that extraordinary sense that he 
or she was personally recognized. It was either a reference to 
the splendid old veteran f atiiier of one, or some devoted sacrifice 



2i6 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

on the part of the mother of anoth^ , or a deed of valor of the 
person himself , or a meny reminiscence of himting or Rough- 
Rider warfare; but with each and every person who passed 
in what seemed occasionally an intenninable line, there was 
immediately established a personal sense of relationsh^). P^- 
haps that was^ of all my brother's attributes, the most endear- 
ing, namely, that power of his of injecting himself into the life 
of the other person and of making that other person realize that 
he was not just an indifferent lump of humanity, but a living 
and breathing individual coming in contact with another in- 
dividual even more vividly alive. 

After my own visit of q)ecial festivity I apparently suggest 
certain people for him to ask to the White House, or at least I 
ask him to see them, for in a letter, also in his own handwrit- 
ing, on Februaiy 21, 1904, he says: ''Thank you for suggesting 
F. W. I am glad you told me; it was thoughtfid of you. I will 

also try to see B , but I don't know whether it will do any 

good. He is a kind, upright, typical bourgeois of the purely 
mercantile type; and however much we respect each other, we 
live in widely different and sundered worlds." So characteristic, 
this last sentence. ^^Uing he always was to try to do what I 
wished or thought wise, but also he was always frank in giving 
me the reason why he felt my wish, in scnne cases, would bear 
but little fruit. The bourgeois, mercantile type did indeed live 
in a different and simdered world from that of the practical 
idealist, Theodore Roosevelt. 

In the summer of 1904, when again I was far from well, he 
writes from the White House, August 14: ''Darling Corinne: 
The news in your letter greatly worried me. I wish I could call 
to see you and try to amuse you. I think of you always. Let 
me know at once, or have Douglas let me know, how you are. 
Edith came hack here for a week with me, and we had a real 
honeymoon time together. Then she went back to the chil- 
dren. . • • Every spare moment has been occupied with pre- 
paxing my letter of accq>tance. No one can tell how the dec- 



Home Life in the White House 217 

tkm win tum out; but I am more than content, whatever comes, 
for I have been able to do much that was worth doing. With 
love to Douglas and very, very much love to you, I am, Your 
devoted Brother/* In the miUst of the pressing cares of the 
administration and the fatigue of his letter of accq>tance he 
still has tune for the usual unfailing interest in me and mine I 

On October 18, again my brother wzites: 

''Of course, I am excited about the dectK>n, but there realty 
isn't much I can do about it, and I confine myself chiefly to the 
regular presidential work. Nobody can tell anything about the 
outcome. At the present time, it looks rather favorable to me." 
And again to my husband on October 25: ''As for the result, 
the Lord only knows what it will be. Appearances look favor- 
able, but I have a mind steeled for any outcome 1'' 

In sgite of his "mind steeled for any outcome," the one great 
ambition of Theodore Roosevelt's life was to be chosen Presi- 
dent on his own merits by the people of the United States. He 
longed for the seal of approval on the devoted service which he 
had rendered to his country, and one of my dearest memories 
is my conversation with him on Election day, 1904, when on his 
way badL from voting at Oyster Bay, I met him at Newark, 
N. J., and went with him as far as Philadelphia. In his private 
drawing-room on the car, he opened his heart to me, and told 
me that he had never wanted an}rthing in his life quite as much 
as the outward and visible sign of his country's approval of what 
he had done during the last three and a half years. I frankly 
do not fed that this wish was because of any overweening am- 
bition on his part, but to the nature of Theodore Roosevdt 
it had always been especially difficult to have come into the 
great position which he heki through a calamity to another 
rathtf than as the personal choice of the people of the United 
States. His temperament was such that he wished no favor 
?diich he had not himself won. Therefore, it seemed to him a 
crucial moment in his life when, on his own merit, he was to be 
judged as fit or unfit to be his own successor. Not only for those 



2i8 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

reasons did he wish to be elected in his own right, but because, 
as was the case in f oimer dajrs when he wished to be renominated 
governor of New York State, he had again initiated many re^ 
forms, and had made many ai^intments, and he wished to 
carry those reforms into effect and to back up those appoint- 
ments with his own hdpfuhxess and prestige. 

When we parted in Philadelphia, I to return to my home in 
Orange and he to go on to meet this vital moment of his career, 
I remember feeling a poignant anxiety* about the result of the 
election, and it can well be understood the joy I felt that eve- 
ning when the returns proved him overwhelmingly successful at 
the polls. Late at night, we received a telegram from the White 
House directed to Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Robinson in answer 
to our wire sent earlier in the evening. It ran as foUows: ^' Was 
glad to hear from you. Only wish you were with us this evening." 
The next morning I received a letter, only a few lines but in- 
finitely characteristic. They were penned by my brother upon 
his arrival at the White House after we had parted in Phila- 
delphia, some hours before he knew an3rthing of the election 
returns. In this letter he describes his sudden reaction from 
the condition of nervous excitement from which he had suffered 
during the day. He sajrs: ^^As I mounted the White House 
steps, Edith came to meet me at the door, and I suddenly 
realized that, after all, no matter what the outcome of the 
election should prove to be, my happiness was assured, even 
though my ambition to have the seal of approval put upon my 
administration might not be gratified, — ^for my life with Edith 
and my children constitutes my happiness.'* This little note 
posted to me on the eve of his great victory showed clearly his 
sense of proportion and his concq>tion of true values. 

On November ii, 1904, he writes again: '^Darling Corinne: 
I received your letter. I have literally but one moment in which 
to respond, for I am swamped with letters and telegrams. We 
have recdved between eight and ten thousand. I look forward 
with keen eagerness to seeing you and Douglas." 



Home Life in the White House 219 

Aod so the crucial moment was over, and by a greater ma- 
jority than had ever before been known in this country, the 
man of destiny had come into his own, and Theodore Roose- 
velt, acclaimed by all the people whom he had served so faith- 
fully,, was, in his own right and through no sad misfortune, Presi- 
dent of the United States of America. 

Ahnost immediately after the excitement of the election, 
namely, on November 12, 1904, my brother writes to my hus- 
band: ''If you and Corinne could come on with us to the St. 
Louis Fair, it would be the greatest possible delight. Now, for 
Heaven's sake, don't let an3rthing interfere with both of your 
coming." 

Needless to say, we accepted the invitation jo3rfuIly, and 
the tnp to the St Louis Fair was one of our most unique ex- 
periences. Coming as it did almost immediately after the great 
victory of his overwhelming election, wherever the train stopped 
he received a tremendous ovation, and my memory of him dur- 
ing the transit is equally one of cheering groups and swarming 
delegations. 

In spite of the noise and general excitement, whenever he 
had a spare moment of quiet, I noticed that he always re- 
turned to his own special seat in a comer of the car, and be- 
came at once completely absorbed in two large volumes which 
were always ready on his chair for him. The rest of us would 
read irrelevantly, perhaps, talk equally irrelevantly, and the 
hours sped past; but my brother, when he was not actually 
receiving delegations or making an occasional impromptu q)eech 
at the rear end of the car to the patient, waiting groups who 
longed to show him thdr devotion, would return in the most 
detached and focussed manner to the books in which he absorbed 
himself. 

Our two days at St Louis were the type of days only led by 
a presidential party at a fair. Before experiencing them I had 
thought it would be rather '' grand " to be a President's sister, with 
the aforesaid President when he opened a great fair. ''Grand" 



220 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

it certainly was, but the exhaustion outbalanced the grandeur. 
I ran steaffify for forty-eight hours without one moment's inter- 
mission. My brother never seemed to walk at all, and my whole 
memory of the St Louis Fair is a perpetual jog-trot, only inter- 
rupted by interminable receptions, presentations of gifts, lengthy 
luncheons and lengthier evening banquets, and I literally re- 
member no night at all ! Whether we never went to bed during 
the time we were at the fair, or exactly what happened to the 
ntghts after twelve o'doct, is more than I can say. At the end 
of the time allotted for the fair, after the last long banquet, we 
returned to our private car, and I can stQI see the way in which 
my sister-in-law (she was not bam a Roosevelt !) fell into her 
stateroom. I was about to follow her example (it was midnight) 
when my brother turned to me in the gayest possible manner 
and said: ''Not going to bed, are youl" ''Well,'' I replied, "I 
had thought of it." "But no," he said; "I told my stenogn^her 
this morning to rest all day, for I knew that I would need her 
services to-night, and now she is perfectly rested." I interrupted 
him: "But, Tlieodore, you never told me to rest all day. I have 
been following you all day — " He laughed, but firmly said: 
"Sit rig^t down here. You will be sony if you go to bed. I 
am going to do something that is very interesting, ^^^lliam 
Rhodes has asked me to review his second and third volumes of 
the 'History of the United States.' You may have noticed I 
was reading those volumes on the way from Washington. I feel 
just like doing it now. The stenographer is rested, and as for 
you, it will do you a great deal of good, because you don't know 
as much as you should about American history." Smilingly he 
put me in a chair and began his dictation. Lord Morley is re- 
ported to have said, after his visit to the United States, when 
asked what he thought most interesting in our country: "There 
are two great things in the United States: one is Niagara, the 
other is Theodore Roosevelt." As I think of my brother that 
night. Lord Morley's words come back to me, for it seemed as 
if, for once, the two great things were combined in one. Such a 



Home Life in the White House 221 

Niagara as flowed from the lips of Theodore Roosevelt would 
have suiprised even the brilliant English statesman. He never 
once referred to the books themselves, but he ran through the 
whole gamut of their story, suggesting here, interpolating there, 
courteously referring to some slight inaccuracy, taking up oc- 
casionally almost a page of the matter (referring to the indi- 
vidual page without ever ^andng at the book)^ and finally, at 
5 A. H., with a satisfied aspect, he turned to me and said: ^^That 
is all about 'Rhodes's History.'" 

I rose feebly to my feet and said: ''Good night, darling." 
But not at all — still gaily, as if he had just begun a day's work, 
instead of having reached the weary, littered end of twenty- 
four hours, he said once more: ''Don't go to bed. I must do 
one other piece of work, and I think you would be especially 
interested in it. Peter Dunne — ^'Dooley,' you know— has sent 
me an article of his on the Irish Question, and wants a review 
on that from me. I am very fond of Dunne, and really fed I 
should like to give him my opinions, as they do not entirely agree 
with his in this particular article. I feel like doing this now. 
Sit down again." He never asked me to do an3rthing with him 
that I ever refused, were it in my power to assent to his sugges- 
tion. How I rejoice to think that this was the case, and there 
was no exception made to my usual rule at 5 a. h. that Novem- 
ber morning. I sat down again, and sure enough, in a few mo- 
ments all fatigue seemed to vanish from me, as I listened with 
eager interest to his masterly review of Peter Dunne's opinions 
on the Irish situation at that moment It was a little late, or 
perhaps one might say a little early, to begin so complicated a 
subject as the Irish Question, and my final memories of his dic- 
tation are confused with the fact that at about 7 a. m. one of the 
colored porters came in with coffee, and shortly after that I was 
assisted to my berth in a more or less asphyxiated condition, 
from which I never roused again until the train reached the sta- 
tion at Washington. That was the way in which Theodore 
Roosevelt did work. I have often thought that if some of us 



222 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

alwajrs had the book at hand that we wanted to read, instead 
of wasting time in looking for it, if we alwajrs had dearly in our 
minds the extra job we wanted to do, and the tools at hand with 
which to do it, we might accomplish in some small degree the 
vast numbers of things he accomplished because of preparedness. 
As early as December 19, 1904, my sbter-in-law wrote me: 
'^Theodore sajrs that he wants you and Douglas under his roof 
for the Inauguration/' I alwajrs felt a deep appreciation of the 
fact that botii my brother and his wife made us so welcome at 
the most thrilling moments of their life in the White House. 

In January, 1905, he came to stay with me in New York 
to speak at several dinners, and a most absurd and yet try- 
ing incident occurred, an incident which he met with his usual 
sunny and unselfish good humor. We had had a large luncheon 
for him at my home, and when the time came for him to dress 
in the evening for the dinner at which he was to speak, I sud- 
denly heard a call from the third story, a pitiful call: ^^I don't 
think I have my own dress coat." I ran up-stairs, and sure 
enough the coat laid out with his evening clothes, when he tried 
to put it on, proved to be so tight across his broad shoulders 
that whenever he moved his hands it rose unexpectedly almost 
to his ears. I called my butler, who insisted that he had taken 
the President's coat with the rest of his clothes to brush, and 
had brought it back again to his room. This, however, was un- 
true, for the awful fact was soon divulged that the extra waiter 
engaged for the luncheon, and who had already left the house, 
had apparently confused the President's coat, which was in the 
basement to be pressed, with his own, and had taken away the 
President's coat I No one knew at this man's house where he 
had gone. There seemed no method of tracing the coat. We 
dressed my brother in my husband's coat, but that was even 
worse, for my husband's coat fell about him in folds, and there 
seemed nothing for it but to send him to the large public dinner 
with a coat that, unless most cleverly manipulated, continued 
to rise unexpectedly above his head. No one but my brother 



Home Life in the White House 223 

would have taken this catastn^he with unruffled gaiety, but 
he started off apparently perfectly contented, rather than give 
me a more dejected feeling than I already had about the mis- 
adventure. I, myself, was to go later to the dinner to hear his 
speech from one of the boxes, and I shall never foiget my trepida- 
tion when he b^gan his address, as I saw the coat sbwly rising 
higher and higher. At the most critical moment, when it seemed 
about to suimount his head, a messenger-boy, flurried and flushed 
with exertion, ran upon the stage with a package in his hand. 
The recalcitrant waiter had been found by my butler, and the 
President's coat had been torn from his back. Excusing him- 
self for a moment, with a laughing gesture which brought the 
coat completely over his head he retired into the wings, changed 
the article in question, and a few moments later brought down 
the whole house by his humorous account of the reason for his 
retirement 

On March 3, 1905, as the guests of my cousin Emlen Roose- 
velt, who took a special car for the occasion, the members of 
iny family, my husband, and myself started for the inaugura- 
tion of Theodore Roosevelt as President. Memories crowd 
about me of those two or three days at the White House. The 
atmosphere was one of great family gaiety, combined with an 
underlying seriousness which showed the full realization fdt 
by my brother of the great duties which he was again to assume 
this time as the choice of the people. 

What a day it was, that inaugural day! As usual, the per- 
sonal came so much into it. The night before, Mr. John Hay 
sent him a ring with a part of the lock of Abraham Lincoln's 
hair which John Hay himself had cut from the dead President's 
forehead almost immediately after his assassination. I have 
never known my brother to receive a gift for which he cared so 
deeply. To wear that ring on the day of his own inauguration as 
President of the United States, elected to the office by the free 
will of the great American pec^le, was to him, perhaps, the high- 
est fulfilment of his desires. The day dawned dark and threaten- 



224 My Brother Theodore Roosevdt 

ing and with snow filtering through the clouds, but occasionally 
lifts of sunlight brake through the sombre bank of gray. The 
ceremonies were fraught, to those of us who loved him so deq>Iy, 
with great solemnity. The Vice-President taking his oath in 
the senate-chamber, the arrival there of the judges of the Su* 
preme Court, the gUttering uniforms of the fore^ ambassadors 
and their suites, the appearance of the President-elect, and our 
withdrawal to the porch of the Capitol, from which he was to 
make his inaugural address — all of this remains indelibly im- 
pressed upon my mind. His solemn, ardent words as he dedi- 
cated himself afresh to the service of the country, the great 
crowd straining to hear each sentence, the eager attitude of the 
guard of honor (his beloved Rough Riders)— all made a vivid 
picture never to be forgotten. An eye-witness wrote as follows: 
'^Old Chief Justice Fuller with his beautiful white hair and his 
long, judicial gown administered the oath, and Roosevelt re- 
peated it so loudly that he could be heard in spite of the wind. 
In fact the wind rather added to the impressiveness than other- 
wise, as it gave the President a chance to throw bade his shoul- 
ders to resist it, and that gave you a wonderful feeling of strength 
that went spkndidty with the speech itself. The speech, was 
abort, and was mainly a plea for the 'Peace of Justice' as com- 
pared with the Teaoe of the CowanL' It was very stirring. 
The applause was tremendous." 

I would have my readers remember that when Theodore 
Roosevelt pleaded for sudi a peace it was in 1905, nine years be- 
fore peace was broken by the armies of the Huns, and during 
those long years he never once failed to preach that doctrine, 
and to the last moment of his life abhorred and denounced the 
I>eace.of the coward. 

FoUowhig qukUy on his inaugural specdk came the luncheon 
at the White House, at whidi friends from New York were as 
cordially wdcomed as were Bill Sewall's large family from the 
Maine woods and Will Merrifidd, who, now a marshal, brought 
the greetings of the State of Montana. After luncheon we all 



Home Life in the White House 225 

went out on the reviewing-stand. The President stood at the 
front of the box, his hat always off in response to the salutes. 
The great procession lasted for hours^-West Pointers and naval 
cadets followed by endless state organizations, governors on 
horseback, cowboys waving their lassos and shouting favorite 
slogans (they even lassoed a couple of men, en passani). Chief 
Jo6q>h, the grand old man of the Nez Perc6 tribe, gorgeously 
caparisoned, his brilliant head-dress waving in the wind, fol- 
lowed by a body of Indians only a shade less superb in costume, 
and then a hundred and fifty Harvard fellows in black gowns 
and caps — and how they cheered for the President as they passed 
the stand! Surely there was never before such an inaugu- 
ration of any President in Washington. Never was there such 
a feeling of personal devotion in so many hearts. Other Presi- 
dents have had equal admiration, equal loyalty peribaps, but 
none has had that loyalty and admiration given by so liberal 
and varied a number of his fellow countrymen. 

It was dark before we left the stand, and soon inside of the 
White House there followed a reception to the Rough Riders. 
What a happy time the President had with them recalling by- 
gone adventures, while the Roosevelt and Robinson children ran 
merrily about listening to the wonderful stories and feeding 
the voradous Rough Riders. Later the President went bare- 
headed to the stqps under the porte-coch^ and received the 
cowboys, who rode .past one after another, joyfully shaking 
hands with their old chief, ready with some joke for his special 
benefit, to which there was always a repartee. It was a unique 
scene as they cheered the incoming magnate under the old porte- 
coch^, and one never to be rq>eated. And then the Harvard 
men filed past to shake hands. Needless, to say, dinner was 
rather late, though very merry, and we were all soon off to the 
inaugural ball. It was a beautiful sight, the hall enormous, 
with two rows of arches and pillars, one above the other, along 
each side. The floor was absolutely crowded with moving people, 
all with their faces straining up at our box. Ten thousand people 



226 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

bought tickets. Mr. Matthew Hale, then tutor to my nephew 
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., has described the scene as follows: 
^^The whole room was beautifully decorated with lights and 
wreaths and flowers. As I stood looking down on the great 
pageant I felt as though I were in some other world, — ^as though 
these people below there and moving in and out were not real 
people, but were all part of some great mechanism built for our 
special benefit. And then my feeling would change to the other 
extreme when I thought of each one of those men and women 
as individuals, each one thinking, and feeling and acting accord- 
ing to his own will, — and that all, just for that one night, came 
together for a common purpose, to see the President. Soon 
an open place appeared in the throng before us, and the Presi- 
dent and Mrs. Roosevelt, and behind them Vice-President and 
Mrs. Fairbanks, walked to the other end of the hall and back, 
while the people cheered and cheered." And soon it was time 
to go back to the White House, and then, best of all, came what 
we used to call a ^'back-hair" talk in Theodore and Edith's room. 
What fun we had as we talked the great day over in comfortable 
deshabille. A small round bottle of old wine was found some- 
where by Mrs. Roosevelt, and the family drank the President's 
health, and we talked of old times and childhood days, and of 
the dear ones whose hearts would have gtowed so warmly had 
they lived to see that day. We laughed immoderately over all 
kinds of humorous happenings, and we could hardly bear to say 
'^good ni^t," we still felt so gay, so full of life and fun, so 
invigorated and stimulated by the excitement and by the 
deeper thoughts and deares, which, however, only took the form 
that n|^t of increasing hilarity* ! 

Shortly after that March inauguration my daughter Corinne, 
just eighteen, was asked by her kind aunt to pay a visit at the 
White House, and I impressed upon her the wonderful oppor- 
tunity she would have of listening to the great men of the world 
at the informal luncheon gatherings which were a feature of 
my brother's incumbency. ^'Do not miss a word/' I said to 



Home Life in the White House 227 

my daughter. ''Uncle Ted biings to luncheon all the great men 
in Washington — ahnost always several members of the cabinet, 
and any one of interest who is visitiDg there. Be sure and listen 
to everything. You will never hear such talk again." When 
she returned home from that visit I eagerly asked her about 
the wonderful luncheons at the White House, where I had so 
frequent^ sat spellbound. My somewhat irreverent young 
daughter said: ''Mother, I lauded intemalty all throu^ the 
first luncheon at the White House during my visit. Uncle Ted 
was perfectly lovely to me, and took me by the hand and 
said: 'Corinny, dear, you are to sit at my rig^t hand to-day, and 
you must have the most delightful person in the room on your 
other side.' With that he ^anced at the distinguished crowd of 
gentlemen who were surrounding him waiting to be assigned to 
their places, and picking out a very elderly gentleman with a 
bng white beard, he said with gtowing enthusiasm: 'You shall 
have John Burroughs, the great naturalist.' I confess I had 
hoped for some secretary in the cabinet, but, no, Unde Ted 
did not think there was any one in the world that compared in 
thrilling excitement to his wonderful old friend and lover of 
birds. Even so, I thought, 'Mother would wish me to leam 
all about natural history, and I shall hear marvellous ornitho- 
logical tales, even if poUtics must be put aside.' But even in 
that I was somewhat disappointed, for at the very beginning 
of luncheon Uncle Ted leaned across me to Mr. Burroughs and 
said: 'John, this morning I heard a ddppy sparrow, and he sang 
twee, twee, right in my ear.' Mr. Burrou^, with a shade of 
disapproval on his face, said: 'Mr. President, you must be mis- 
taken. It was not a chippy sparrow if it sang twee, twee. The 
note of the chippy sparrow is twee, twee, twee.' From that mo- 
ment the great affairs of our continent, the international crises 
of all kinds were utterly forgotten, while the President of the 
United States and his esteemed guest, the great naturalist, dis- 
cussed with a good deal of aq>erity whether that chippy sparrow 
had said 'twee, twee,' or 'twee, twee, twee.' We rose from the 



228 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

table with the questu>ii still unsettled." My brother always 
loved to hear my daughter tell this story, although his face would 
assume a somewhat sheepish expression as she dilated on the 
difference between her mother's prognostications of what a 
luncheon at the White House would mean from an intellectual 
standpoint, and what the realization actually became I 

In spite of my daughter's experience, however, I can say 
with truth that there never were such luncheons as those 
luncheons at the White House during my brother's life there. 
The secretary of state, Mr. Elihu Root, with his unusual knowl- 
edge, his pregnant wit, and quiet, brilliant sarcasm; the secretary 
of war, Mr. Taft, with his gay smile and ready response; Mr. 
Moody, the attorney-general with his charming culture and uni- 
versal kindliness, and Senator Heniy Cabot Lodge, the brilliant 
scholar and statesman, my brother's most intimate friend and 
constant companion, were frequent members of the luncheon- 
parties, and always, the most distinguished visitor to Washing- 
ton, from whatever country or from whatever State of our own 
country, would be brought in with the same informal hos- 
pitality* and received for the time being by President and Mrs. 
Roosevelt into the intimacy of family life. The whole cabinet 
would occasionally adjourn from one of their most important 
meetmgs to the lunch-table, and then the President and Mr. 
Root would cap each other's stories of the way in which this or 
that question had been discussed during the cabinet meeting. 
I doubt also if ever there were quite such cabinet meetings as 
were held during those same years ! 

That spring Mr. Robinson and I took my daughter to Porto 
Rico to visit Governor and Mrs. Beekman Winthrop. My 
brother believed strongly in young men, and having admired 
the intelligence of young Beekman Winthrop (he came of a fine 
old New York family) as circuit judge in the Philippines, he 
decided to make him governor of Porto Rico. He was only 
twenty-nine, and his charming wife still younger, but they made 
a most ideal couple as administrators of the beautiful island. 



Home Life in the White House 229 



After having been with them in the old palace for about a wedc, 
and having enjoyed b^ond measure all that was so gradously 
arranged for us, I was approached one day by Governor Win- 
thropy who told me that he was much distressed at the behavior 
of a certain official and that he felt sure that the President would 
not wish the man to remain in office, for he was actually a dis- 
grace to the United States. ''Mrs. Robinson/' he said, ''wiU 
you not go to the President on your return, and tell him that I 
am quite sure he would not wish to retain this man in office? 
I know the President likes us to workwith the tools which have 
been given us, and I dislike bqrond measure to seem not to be 
able to do so, but I am convinced that this man should not rq>- 
resent the United States in this island." '' Have you your proofs, 
Beekman?" I asked. ''I should not be willing to approach my 
brother with any such criticism without accurate proofe." ''I 
most assuredly have them," he answered, and sure enou^ he 
did have them, and I shortly afterward sailed with them back 
to New York. Immediately upon my arrival I tdegn^ed my 
brother as follows: ''Would like to see you on Porto Rican busi- 
ness. When shall I come ? " One of Theodore Roosevelt's most 
striking characteristics was the rapidity* with which he answered 
letters or telegrams. One Uterally felt that one had not posted 
a letter or sent the telegram rushing along the wire before the 
rapid answer came winging back again, and that particular tele- 
gram was no exception to the rule. I had rather hoped for a 
week's quiet in which to get settled after my tnp to Porto Rico, 
but that was not to be. The rapid-fire answer read as follows: 
'' Come tomorrow." Of course there was nothing for me to do 
but go ^^ tomorrow." It was late in April, and as I drove up to 
the White House from the station, I thought how lovely a dty 
was Washington in the springtime. The yellow forsythias gave 
a golden g^w to the squares, and the soft hanging petals of the 
fringe-trees waved in the scented air. I never drove under the 
White House porte-coch^ without a romantic feeling of ex- 
citement at tibe realization that it was my brother, lover of 



230 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Lincoln, lover of America, who lived under the roof which S}an- 
bolized all that America means to her children. As I went up 
the White House steps, he blew out of the door, dressed for his 
ride on horseback. His horse and that of a companion were 
waiting for him. He came smilingly toward me, welcomed me, 
and said: ''Edie has had to go to Philadelphia for the n^t to 
visit Nellie Tyler, so we are all alone, and I have ordered dinner 
out on the back porch, for it is so warm and lovely, and there is 
a full moon, and I thought we could be so quiet there. I have 
so much to tell you. All sorts of political things have happened 
during your absence, and besides that I have learned several 
new poems of EipUng and Swinburne, and I fed like redting 
them to you in the moonlight I" '^How perfectly lovdy," I 
replied, ^^ and when shall I see you about Porto Rico?" A slight 
frown came on his brow, and he said, 'Xertainly not to-n^t,'* 
and then rather sternly: ''You have your appointment at nine 
o'clock to-morrow morning in the office to discuss business 
matters." Then with a returning smile: ''I will be back pretty* 
soon. Good-by." And he jumped on his horse and dattered 
away toward Rock Cred:. 

It all came true, althou^ it almost seemed like a fairy-tale. 
We had that dinner d deux on the lovely portico at the rear of 
the White House looking toward the Washington Monument — 
that portico was beautifully reproduced by Sargent's able brush 
for Mrs. Roosevdt latei^-and under the great, soft moon, with 
the scent of shrub and flower in the air, he redted Elipling and 
Swinburne, and then falling into more serious vein, gave me 
a vivid description of some difficulty he had had with Con- 
gress, which had refused to recdve a certain message which he 
had written and during the interval bet?/een the sending of 
it and their final decision to recdve it, he had shut him- 
self up in his library, glad to have a moment of unea;>ected 
leisure, and had written an essay, which he had long desired 
to write, on the Irish sagas. The moon had waned and the 
stars were brighter and deeper bdore we left the portico. We 




Frm Uu dron'oi iy JmUi G„tnn. 



We bad that lovely dinner on the portico at the back of the White House looking 
toward the Washington MonumeDt. 






Home Life in the White House 231 

never could go to bed when we were together, and I am so 
glad that we never did! 

The next morning I knocked at his door at eight o'clock, to go 
down to the early breakfast with the children^ which was one of 
the features also, quite as much as were the brilliant lunches, of 
home life in the White House. He came out of his dressing- 
room radiant and smiling, ready for the day's work, looking as 
if he had had eight hours of sleq> instead of five, and rippling 
all over with the laughter which he always infused into those 
family breakfasts. As we passed the table at the head of the 
staircase, at which later in the day my sister's secretary wrote 
her letters, the telephone-bell on the table rang, and with q)on- 
taneous sunplidty— not even thinking of ringing a bell for a 
''menial" to answer the telephone-call — he picked up the re- 
ceiver himself as he passed by. His face assumed a listening 
look, and then a broad smile broke over his features. ''No," 
he said. "No, I am not Archie, I am Archie's father." A second 
passed and he laughed aloud, and then said: ''All right, I will 
tell him; I won't forget." Hanging up the receiver, he turned 
to me half-sheepishty but very much amused. "That's a good 
joke on any President," he said. "You may have realized that 
there was a little boy on the other end of that wire, and he started 
the conversation by saying, 'Is that you, Archie?' and I re- 
plied, 'No, it is Archie's father.' Whereupon he answered, with 
evident disgust: 'Well, you'll do. Be sure and tell Archie to 
come to supper. Now, don't forget.' 'How the creatures order 
you about !' " he gaily quoted from our favorite book, "Alice in 
Wonderland," and proceeded to run at full speed down to the 
breakfast-room. There the children greeted us vodferously, 
and the usual merry breakfast ensued. For that half-hour he 
always belonged to the children. Questions and answers about 
their school life, their recreation when out of school, etc., etc., 
followed in rapid succession, interspersed with various fascinat- 
ing tales told by him for their special edification. 

After they had dispersed there was still a half-hour left be- 



232 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

fore he went to the ofKce at 9 o'clock^ and whenever I visited 
the White House (my visits were rather rare, as my husband, 
being a busy real-estate broker in New York, could not often 
break away) that half-hour was always given to me, and we in- 
variably walked around the great circle at the bac^ of the White 
House. It was his most vigorous moment of the day, that hour 
from 8.30 to 9. He had not yet met the puzzUng defeats and 
compromises necessitated by the conflicting interests of the 
many appointments in the office, and he was fresh and vivid, 
interested in the problems that were to be brought to him for 
solution that day, and observant of everything around him. I 
remember that morning as we walked around the circle he was 
discussing a very serious problem that had to be decided im- 
mediately, and he held his foreflnger straight up, and said: 
''You know my temperament always wants to g^t there" — 
putting his other forefinger on the apex of the first. ''I naturally 
wish to reach the goal of my desire, but would I not be very 
blind and stupid if, because I couldn't get tkere^ I decided to 
stay here [changing his right forefinger to the base of the left] 
'^rather than get here"— finishing his simile by placing the right 
finger to the third notch of the finger on his other hand. 

Just as he was finishing this simile his eye caught sight of a 
tiny object on the pathway, so minute a littie brown q>ot that 
I should never have noticed it; but he stooped, pii^ed it up, 
and held it between his forefinger and thumb, looking at it 
eagerly, and then muttering somewhat below his breath: ''Very 
early for a fox-sparrow." He threw the tiny piece of flu£F again 
upon the path. ''How do you know that that was a feather 
from a fox-sparrow, Theodore?" I said, in my usual astonish- 
ment at his observation and information. "I can understand 
how you might know it was a sparrow, but how know it belonged 
to the fox-sparrow rather than to any of the other innumerable 
littie creatures of that spedes?" He was almost deprecatory in 
his manner as he said in reply: "Well, you see I have really 
made a great study of sparrows." And then we were back at the 



\^ 



Home Life in the White House 233 

entrance to the White House, and in a moment I leaned out of 
the dining-room window and watched him walk across the short 
space between that window and the office, his head thrown badL, 
his shoulders squared to meet the difficulties of the day, and 
every bit of him alert, alive, and glowing with health and strength 
and power and mentality. 

I went up-stairs, put on my ''best bib and tucker," and pro- 
ceeded to go around the other way to the front door of the offices. 
As I rang the bell the dear old man who always opened the door 
greeted me warmly, and said: ''Yes, Mrs. Douglas Robinson, 
your appointment is at 9. It is just time." I went into the 
outer hall, ndiere a number of the appointees of 9.15, 9.30, etc, 
were already waiting, to be surely on hand for their appoint- 
ments, and in a moment or two Mr. Loeb opened the door of 
the private <^ce of the President, and came out into the hall 
and said in a rather impersonal way, "Mrs. Douglas Robinson's 
appointment," and I was shown into the room. My brother 
was seated at a large table, and on it was every imaginable paper 
marked "Porto Rico." As I entered he was still reading one of 
these ps9>er8. He looked up, and I almost felt a shock as I met 
what seemed to be a pair of perfectly opaque blue eyes. I could 
hardly believe th^ were the ^es of the brother with whom 
I had so lately parted, the eyes that had glistened as he re- 
cited the poems of Ejpfing and Swinburne, the eyes that had 
abnost dosed to see better the tiny breast-fluff of the fox-spar- 
row. These were rather cold ^es, the eyes of a just judge, qres 
that were turned upon his sister as they would have been turned 
upon any other individual who came to him in connection with 
a question about which he must give his most careful and de- 
liberate decision. He waved me to a chair, finished the paper 
he was reading, and then turning to me, his eyes still stem and 
opaque, he said: "I believe you have come to see me on busi- 
ness coimected with Porto Rico. Kindly be as condensed as 
possible." I decided to meet him on his own ground, and made 
my eyes as much like his as possible, and was as condensed as 



234 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

possible. Having listened carefully to my short story, he said: 
''Have you proof of this ? " still rather sternly. Again I decided 
to answer as he asked, and I replied: ''I should not be here, 
wasting your time and mine, did I not have adequate proof." 
With that I handed him the notes made by the governor of Porto 
Rico, and proceeded to explain them. He became a little less 
severe after reading them, but no less serious, and turning 
to me more gently, said: ''This is a veiy serious matter. I 
have got to be sure of the correctness of these statements. A 
man's whole future hangs upon my decision." For a moment 
I felt like an executioner, but realizing as I did the shocking 
and disgraceful behavior of the official in question, I knew that 
no sentimentality on my part should interfere with the impor- 
tant decision to be made, and I briefly backed up all that the 
governor had written. I can still hear the sound of the Presi- 
dent's pen as he took out the paper on which the man's name 
was inscribed, and with one strong stroke effaced that name 
from official connection with Porto Rico forever. That was 
the way that.Theodore Roosevelt did business with his sister. 
During that same year, 1905, the old Provengal poet Fr£d&ic 
Mistral sent him his volume called "Mireille," and the acknowl- 
edgment of the book seems to me to express more than almost 
any other letter ever written by my brother the spirit which 
permeated his whole life. It shows indisputably that though 
he had reached the apex of his desires, that though he was a 
great Pre^dent of a great country, perhaps the most powerful 
ruler at the moment of any country, that his ideals for that coun- 
try, just as his ideals for himself and for his own bebved home 
life, were what they had always been before the sceptre of power 
had been clasped by his outstretched hand. 

White House, Washington, 

My dear M. Mistral: December xs, 1905. 

Mrs. Roosevelt and I were equally pleased with the book 
and the medal, and none the less because for nearly twenty years 



Home Life in the White House 235 

we have possessed a copy of Mireille. That copy we shall keep 
for old association's sake, though this new copy with the per- 
sonal inscription by you must hereafter occupy the place of 
honor. 

All success to you and your associates! You are teaching 
the lesson that none need more to learn than we of the West, 
we of the eager, restless, wealth-seeking nation; the lesson that 
after a certain not very high level of material well-being has 
been reached, then the things that really count in life are the 
things of the spirit. Factories and railways are good up to a 
<:ertain point, but courage and endurance, love of wife and child, 
love of home and country, love of lover for sweetheart, love of 
beauty in man's work and in nature, love and emulation of dar- 
ing and of lofty endeavour, the homely work-a-day virtues and 
the heroic virtues — these are better still, and if they are lacking, 
no piled-up riches, no roaring, clanging industrialism, no fever- 
ish and many-sided activity shall avail either the individual or 
the nation. I do not undervalue these things of a nation's body; 
I only desire that they shall not make us forget that beside the 
nation's body there is also the nation's soul. 

Again thanking you on behalf of both of us, believe me. 

Faithfully yours, 
(Signed) Tbeouoxr Roosevelt. 
To M. Fr£d&ic Mistral. 

No wonder that Mistral turned to a friend after reading 
that letter and said with emotion: ''It is he who is the new hopt 
of humanity." 



xn 

HOME LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

(jcostsnued) 

Men smile through falling teais. 
Remembering the courage of his years 
That stood each one for Gk)dy humanity. 
And covenanted world-wide Liberty I 

—Edith Daley. 

ONE of the most extraordinary things about my brother 
' was that in the midst of his full political life, a life 
''pressed down and overflowing/' he still had time for 
the most loving interest in personal family matters. Just after 
the great moment of his inauguration, he sent me a number of 
photographs of my eldest son and his young wife, just married, 
who had gone around the world and were staying with General 
Wood in the Philippuies, and adds in the letter: ''It was such 
a pleasure to have Douglas and you down here for the inaugura- 
tion, and to see the boys and Corinne." In June of that same 
year, when my two younger boys had each won a boat-race at 
St. Paul's School, he takes a moment from his pressing duties 
to write another letter: "Darling Corinne: Good for Monroe 
and Stewart! Give them my hearty congratulations; I have 
only time for this line." Such unusual thous^tfulness could 
not fail to keq> burning perpetually the steady fire of my love 
for him. 

In July, 1905, he sent me one of the inauguration medals 
signed by Saint-Gaudens. In looking at the head upon that 
medal, one realized perfectly by the strong lines of temple and 

236 



Home Life in the White House 237 

forehead that Theodore Roosevelt had come to the fuhiess of 
his intellectual powers. 

About the same time there was a naval review at Oyster 
Bay, and Mrs. Roosevelt writes: "The review was a wonderful 
sight. I wish you could have been here. The morning was dark 
and stormy, with showers of driving rain, imtil Theodore's flag 
broke out from the Mayflower ^ when the clouds suddenly dis- 
persed and the sun shone brightly." How often we used to fed 
that the sun always broke out when Theodore's flag flew I 

One other little line from his pen, December 19, 1905, shows 
the same constant thoughtfulness. He says: ''Will you send 
the enclosed note to Dora? I am not sure of her address* I 
hate to trouble you, but I want to have poor 'Dolly' get it by 
Christmas Day." Dora was his old, childhood nurse, one to 
whom we were very much devoted, and whom he never 
forgot. 

At the beginning of the new year, 1906, he writes to my hus- 
band: "Dear Douglas, — By George! Stewart is doing welL 
[I think this referred to the fact that my youngest boy had been 
chosen as goal-keeper of the St. Paul's School hockey team I] 
That is a¥rfuUy nice. I was mighty glad Wadsworth was elected. 
I shall have difficulties this year, and I cannot eq)ect to get 
along as well as I did last year, but I shall do the best I can." 
Never blinded by past popularity, always ready for the difficul- 
ties to come, and yet never dwelling so strongly on these difficul- 
ties that by the very dweUing on them even greater difficulties 
were brought to bear upon him. It was quite true that it proved 
in many ways, a more difficult year than the one preceding, but 
a happy year all the same, a happiness which culminated in his 
satisfaction in the marriage of his daughter Alice to Nicholas 
Longworth, of Cindnnati, Ohio, an able member of the House 
of Representatives. His announcement to me of the engage- 
ment was made at the dinner-table one evening before it was 
known to the world, and not wishing to have it disclosed to the 
world through the table-servants, he dedded to give me the 



Home Life in the White House 239 



dining-room to diink the health of the bride and groom, and re^ 
call various incidents of his and of their college days. 

In March of that year I wrote him that my youngest boy 
was to debate at St. Paul's School on the Santo Domingo ques- 
tion, and he answered at once, with that marvellous punctual- 
ity of his: "I wrote Stewart at once and sent him all the informa- 
tion I could on the Santo Domingo business. I wish you were 
down here. In great haste. Ever yours, T. R." 

In great haste, yes, but not too busy to write to a schoolboy- 
nqdiew ''at once," and give him the most accurate information 
that could be ghren on the question upon which he was to take 
part in school debate. 

Again, when I sugg^ted joining him in his car on his way 
that fall to vote at Oyster Bay, he writes: "Three cheers! Now 
you can join me. We will have lunch immediately after leaving. 
I am so amdous to see you. I shall just love the Longfellow." 
[Evidently some special edition that I am about to bring to 
him.] 

On November 20, with his usual interest in my boys, he sends 
me a delis^tful letter from his ex<owboy superintcaident, Will 
Merrifield, with whom they had been hunting in August and 
September, 1906; and I am interested to see after reading his 
opinion of my boys how Mr. Merrifieki, although many years 
had passed since the old days of the Elkhoni Ranch, st31 turns 
to him for advice, still, beyond all else, wishes to justify his vari- 
ous ventures in the eyes of his old ''boss." Menifidd writes: ''I 
have sold my ranch, and will be able to make good all my finan- 
cial obligations, which was my great ambition, besides having 
something left, so that / unU not take office Jar the purpose oj mak- 
ing money. [That was one of Theodore Roosevelt's perpetual 
preachings, that no one should take office for the purpose of 
making mon^.] I can be independent as far as money goes, 
and above aU will be able to make good my word to you years 
ago, as soon as my business is straightened out" He sends me 
the letter not because of that sentence, but because, as he says, 



240 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

^ ...4. Tdi^^mPt and Stewart 



It 



that I thought I would send ''.**> y^V^^ents of any of 
Always the same generous joy m "»« acmevem 

the younger generation. describing an- 

Agam, on December 26, comes a long leww ^^^ ^^ 

other "White House Christmas." He **fT7^.«Ted" says in 
the children are growing a Kttle older and ttat ^^^^^ 

a melancholy way that he no J^"^^"^^ roundly during 
of former years and the utter inabflity **>, ^'^^r.TpLonally 
the night before Christmas He fdds^?^^^ of the thing 



I think that 'Ted' also was tnorougmjr -. --- -r -^. ^^ 
when Christmas actually arrived, because by «x «^^ 

child of every size was nmning violeritiy to «^f^^^|eing 
hall, in and out of an the oth^c^dren^^. ^e tt^^ 

that Edith and I were stiU steqHsd m dreamless ana un 

slumber 1" j«ii«,if than the winter 

It is true that that whiter t«w more difficidt ^wc^ ^^^ 

before, but he met the unusual difficulties T^^^jT^ch family 
age, and writ« m October, 1907, ^jf ^^X^d^ 
news: "Indeed thnes have been bad ^^^J^ ^ i„no- 
always the case the aton^t wasj«^y ^^^^^^^^^e 

cent p^le suff^ed ^^^V??^ it^mean nSm.te 
rest of the country- Ii ^^ cnecK. «., x uuu-. i^^-i. >» 

^, though it^ also mean depressioii for a yeijr at to«t. 

^^ MmS 1008 in the midst of harassing controversies ami 
^J^mSiZ of ankmds. he t^es the time and - 
^t to write concerning a young fri^ of mme ^^^^ 
Sfehad come an unfortunate trouble. Tlie letter is so full of a 
!.Sr3tv-Xt perhaps Imi^t call a righteous ruth- 
^^^^^^^^^ o« •^•^^ Roosevelt-^that I 

*1"".^I titr^lTSS^f '^ suffering; but the only ^ for h« 
J ^Tfe to treat the past as past, the event as finished and 

*^ '*^f^CTdweft«lit, and above all to keep talking of 
^''^^i yS«wOttVd be both weak and morbid. She should 



Home Life in the White House 241 



try not to think of it; this she cannot wholly avdd, but she can 
avoid speaking of it. She should show a brave and cheerful 
front to the world, whatever she feels; and henceforth she should 
never q>eak one word of the matter to any one. In the long 
f uture, when the memory is too dead to thiob, she may, if she 
wishes, q>eak of it once more, but if she is wise and brave, she 
will not q>eak of it now." 

This note referring to a matter which did not come, except 
through th^ interests of affection, dose to his own life shows 
with startling clearness the philosophy of his attitude toward 
sorrows wherein an origuoal mistake had perhaps been the cause 
of sorrow. Of all the qualities in my brother, this one never 
failed him. It was not harshness; it was, as I said, a righteous 
ruthlessness. The thing that injured one's possibility for service 
in any way must be cut out or burnt out. When that great sor- 
row of his own life, the death of his splendid boy, came in Juty, 
1918, although he never put aside the sympathy of others — 
indeed, he gladly welcomed it, and f^wSfy even would talk with 
those in his innermost circle of the youngest he loved so we& — 
still, as a rule, his attitude was similar to that taken in the above 
letter. Morbid craving could nol bring bac^ his child; morbid 
craving andd hurt his own potential power for good. The grief 
must be met with high head and squared shoulders, and the 
work still to do must be done. 

An through the q>ring of 1908 the question as to his sue* 
cesaor in the White House was constantly in his mind. After 
serious thought he had oome to the condusion that of the men 
dosest to him, William Howard Taft, who had daot apkndid 
work as governor in the Philq>pine8 and had been an able lieu- 
tenant in the work of the Roosevdt administration, would most 
conscientiously cany out the polidea he thought vital for the 
country. This belief did not in any way mean that he wished 
Mr. Taft to be an automaton or dummy, possible of manipula^ 
tion, but he fdt that his then secretary of war was more thor- 
ous^y in sympathy with the polides which he believed to be 



242 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

the light policies for our country than any other man except 
the secretary of state, Mr. Elihu Root, whose possible election 
to the presidency he felt would be very doubtful. Many have 
criticised in later years, especially after the trouble in 1912, his 
choice of Mr. Taf t to succeed him. There came out at one tim6 
an artide in the periodical Lijt which, to my mind, explained 
well the confidence which my brother placed in almost every 
man who woiked with him. The article said approximately: 
''The reason that Theodore Roosevelt occasionally made mis- 
takes in feeling that some of his associates in the work of the 
govermnent would continue to be what he believed them to be, 
is as follows: WhSU any individual was working with Mr. Roose- 
velt, in fact, unier Mr. Roosevelt, the latter had the power of 
inspiring the said individual with his own acuteness, his own 
energy, his own ability. The person, therefore, frequently shone 
with a reflex li^t, a li^t which seemed to Mr. Roosevelt to 
originate in him, but in fact, came from his own unfailing 
sources. The consequence is that when some official who had 
seemed to Mr. Roosevelt to be almost a rara aris^ was left to his 
own devices, and without the magnetic personality of his chief to 
inspire in him qualities not really indigenous in him, the change 
in what that official could accomplish was very marked." Theo- 
dore Roosevelt was convinced that Mr. Taft was entirely in 
accord with the policies in which he so fully believed, and he 
had absolute confidence that in leaving in his hands the work 
which he had striven so haid to perfect, he was doing the best 
thing possible for the United States. 

At that time the people wanted to renominate my brother 
as President. He, however, was convinced that a renomination 
would have defeated the spirit of the unwritten law that no man 
should succeed himself a third time in succession. 

I was present at the convention in Chicago in 1908, and have 
fortunately retained a letter written to my children the very 
morning of that convention, which runs as foUows: 

''Oh, how I wish you could have been here this morning. 



Home Life in the White House 243 

Such an ovation was never known as greeted Mr. Lodge's men- 
tion of your Unde Ted. Mr. Lodge's speech was most scholarly 
and reserved, and in referring to the laws, he said, 'The Presi- 
dent has invariably enforced the laws, and the President is the 
most abused and the most popular man in the country/ Then 
came a ripple and then a mighty shout of applause, growing 
louder and louder, increasing and increasing more and more 
every moment. They clapped, they shouted, they cheered. The 
whole great Convention sang the Star Spangled Banner, and 
then they clq>ped again, and carried 'Teddybears' around the 
hall. They took off thdr coats and swung them around their 
heads. You have never even imagined anything like it. Sev- 
eral times, Mr. Lodge raised his gavel, but with no result, and 
finally he started his speech again, and persevered until the deaf- 
ening noise bq;an to subside fifty minutes after it hefjfiSL It 
really was a wonderful and thrilling scene. It was three o'ck>ck 
before we could keep our luncheon engagement at Geoige Por- 
ter's that first day." 

The following day it required all Mr. Lodge's determination, 
and a ring^ message over the telephone from the White House 
itself, to prevent the renomination of my brother. Not only 
did the people want him, but, what has been so often not the 
case, the delegates wanted him as well. It was one of those rare 
moments at a great convention when the people and the dele- 
gates were in accord, and yet, it was not to be. The will of Theo- 
dore Roosevelt was carried out, and William Howard Taf t wa3 
chosen as the nominee of the Republican party for the next Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

On June 23, 1908, came a letter from the White House to 
me: '^ Darling Corinne — ^It was very good of you and Douglas 
to telegraph me. I am extreme^ pleased with the result of the 
Convention. I think Cabot's handling of it was master^." 
And then, on June 26, an extremely interesting letter came, 
one, I think, which, written as it was four years before the great 
controversy of 19x2, settles forever that question which was 



244 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

so much discussed as to what Theodore Roosevelt meant by 
his statement that he would not run for the presidency again. 
This letter, on White House paper, is dated Oyster Bay, June 
26, 1908: 

'' Darling Corinne— My letter must have crossed yours. 
It was just exactly as you and Alice said. Now there is nothing 
to explain. I have been much amused at the fact that my Eng- 
lish friends are wholly incapable of understanding my reasons 
for the view I take, and think it due to weakness or some fantas- 
tic scruple on my part. My theory has been that the presidency 
should be a powerful office, and the President a powerful man, 
who will take every advantage of it; but, as a corollary, a man 
who can be held accountable to the peq>le, after a term of f oiu* 
years, and who will not in any event occupy it for more than a 
stretch of eight years. . . •" Nothing is more conclusive of my 
brother's attitude than that sentence ''who will not in any event 
occupy it for more than a stretch of e^t years.'' He did not 
befieve in a third term consecutively, but in no way did he pledge 
himself at that time, or at any other time, not to consider again 
the possible gift of the highest place in the nation, should an 
interval come between his occupancy of the White House and 
the renewed desire of the people that he should fill that place 
in the nation once more. I have given some time to his atti- 
tude on this question, as it has been much misunderstood. 

In amusing contrast to the seriousness of his decision not to 
accq>t a renomination comes a characteristic incident in the 
President's career. The account of this I quote from a letter to 
me of Mr. Gustavus Town Elirby, a participator himself in the 
event. The letter runs as follows: 

"In 1908 the Olympic Games had been held at London, 
England, and when the athletes returned to this country, most 
of them went, with some heads of the American Olympic Com- 
mittee, including the late James E. Sullivan and myself, to visit 
and receive the congratulations of the then President of the 
United States at his summer home in Oyster Bay. [What com- 



Home Life in the White House 245 

mittee, on no matter what important business^ did not receive 
the congratulations of that eclectic President at his stunmer 
home at Oyster Bay I] I shall never forget the enthusiasm of 
the gathering, nor how, no sooner had either Sullivan or I pre* 
sented a member of the team to the President, than he would, 
by use of his wonderful memory and in his most inspiring manner, 
tell the special athlete all about his own performance)— how far 
he had put the shot to win his event, or how gamely he had run; 
by how much he had beaten his competitor; his new world- 
record time, and the like. At the time I marvelled, and I thought 
even one as great as he must have 'brushed up' for the occasion, 
'but 'Billy' Loeb, his Secretary, told me afterwards that it was 
not so, and that all during the Games he was kept constantly 
informed of the result of the performances of our boys; and 
while he actually knew none of these boys by sight, he not only 
knew them by name, but their performances as welL Not only 
to me, but to all gathered at this recq>tion was this feat of mem- 
ory most astounding. Mr. Roosevelt's gracious cordiality, his 
fine speech of congratulation, and his magnetic personality had 
such an effect on all that it was with great difficulty that they 
could be literally driven from the grounds and onto the Long 
Island boat for their return to New York. 

"Michael Murphy, the trainer, many years trainer at Yale, 
and thereafter at 'Pennsylvania,' and also for the New York 
Athletic Club, whose team in 1895 ^'^^ triumphant over the 
great team of the London Athletic Club, was also a member of 
the party. On the way back in the boat I happened to pass 
. through the cabin, which was entirely empty ezcq>t for Michael 
Muiphy, who, like the all but wizened-up old man he was, having 
but about a quarter of a lung, and deaf except to those things 
which he could not hear, sat huddled in a comer. I wait up to 
Mike and said, 'What are you doing?' He answered, 'I am 
thinking I' I replied, 'Yes, that is evident; but what are you 
thinking about?' He then said: 'Well, Mr. Elirby, I sui^x)8e 
there is no doubt but that I am the greatest trainer of men in 



246 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

the world.' 'That certamly is true/ I said. He went on: 'Mr. 
Eirby, you are all wrong; untO we went down to Oyster Bay 
I thought I mi^t be, but now I know I am not.' 'But/ 1 said^ 
'Mike, that is nonsense. What do you mean?' Then Mike an- 
swered, ' Give me sixty men, eveiy one of whom is a champion, 
and let that man at Oyster Bay have sixty other men, eveiy 
one of whom is a dub, and his team would fide mine eveiy time 1' 
I said, 'Mike, this is impossible; it could not be,' and then Mike 
continued, — showing how that magnetic personafity of Mr. 
Roosevelt's had taken hold of him, and how truly he, Mike 
Muiphy, understood the psychok>gy of inspiration, — ^' Yes, Mr* 
Eirby, you see it's this way; that man down there would tell 
a miler that he coukl red off a mile in four minutes, (as you 
know, no one has run, or ever will run a mile in four minutes) 
and not only would that man tkink he could run a mile in four 
minutes, but, by Gad, he'd go out and do it.' " 

Perhaps no one has ever more cleverly expressed the extraor- 
dinaiy power of that personafity than that wizened old trainer, 
sunk into desponAency because he realized that where men are 
concerned skiU and science are as nothing compared to the genius 
of leadership. 

That summer my brother showed to my husband and my- 
self his never-faifing love and consideration in a very special 
manner. My husband's mother had died a couple of years be* 
fore, and her son and daughter and myself had decided that the 
most fitting memorial to one who was specially beloved and 
missed in the immediate vidnity of her old home would be the 
erection of a smaU free library to the memory of her and her 
husband. The building was completed, and my husband wished 
to have a dedication service, at which time he would hand over 
the keys to the library trustees in our village of JordanviUe. 
My husband's old home, a grant in the time of Queen Anne to 
his great-great-great-grandfather, Doctor James Henderson, of 
Scotland, had always been a place for which my brother had a 
deq> affection. Situated as it was on the hig^ Mohawk hiUs 



Home Life in the White House 247 

overlooking the great sweq> of typical American fann-land, we 
lived a somewhat Scotch life m the old gray-stone mansion copied 
from the manor-house of Mr. Robinson's Scotch ancestors. My 
brother delighted in our relationshq> with the neighbors in our 
environment, and accepted gladly my husband's earnest desire 
that he should make the q>eech of dedication when the library 
was given by us to the little village of Jordanville. 

It was a great day for that tiny village when the President 
of the United States, his secretaiy of state, Mr. Elihu Root, 
and the Vice-President-elect, James S. Shennan, a native of 
the next county, after being our guests at luncheon, proceeded 
on my husband's four-in-hand brake to the stqis of the little 
colonial building three miles away, designed by our friend Mr. 
S. Breck P. Trowbridge. 

What a day it was and what fun we had I After the library 
czerdses we held a reception at our home, Henderson House, 
and hundreds of eveiy sort and kind of vehicle were left or teth- 
ered along the high ridge near our house. My brother and I 
stood at the end of the quaint old drawing-ioom, and an endless 
file of countiy neighbors passed before him, and each and all 
were greeted with his personal enthusiasm and the marvellous 
knowledge of their interests with which the sli^test word from 
me seemed to make him cognizant. The sunset li^^ts faded 
over the Mohawk hills and lost their last gleam in the winding 
river below before the last '^ dead-wood coach" or brc>ken-down 
buggy had disappeared from the grounds of Henderson House, 
and then in the old hall my own family servants — many of them 
had been twenty or thirty years upon the place — came in to greet 
him after supper, and sang the hymn which they often sang 
on Sunday evenings: '^God be with you till we meet again." 
The stories of that day will be told in time to come by the chil- 
dren's children of my kind friends of Warren Township, Herkimer 
County. Theodore himself writes of the experience as foUows: 

''Oyster Bay, August 27, 1908. Dearest Corinne and Doug- 
las: There is not a thing I would have missed thiou|^ut the 



248 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

whole day. It was a veiy touching little ceremony, and most 
of all it was deUjg^tful to see you two in your lovely home, liv- 
ing just the kind of life that I fed is typical of what American 
life should be at its best. I was so glad to see all your neighbors, 
and to see the tenns they were on with you. Moreover, the view, 
the grounds, the house itself, and all there was therdn, were 
delightful beyond measure; and most delightful of all was it 
to see the three generations ranging from you two to the babies 
of dear Helen and Teddy. Ever yours, Theodore Roosevelt" 
As usual, he never spared an effort to do the lovely thing, and 
then say the satisfying thing to those for whom he had done 
the service. 

And now the time of Theodore Roosevelt's incumbency as 
President was drawing to a close. There is always a glamour 
as well as a shadow over ''last times," and my last visit to the 
White House, in February, 1909, stands out very clearly. My 
brother, the year before, had sent the great American fleet around 
the world, an expedition discountenanced by many, and yet 
conceded later to have been one of his most brilliantly conceived 
strategic inspirations. ''In time of peace, prepare for war," 
said Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt always followed that 
maxim. That trip around the world of the American fleet was 
more conducive to peace than any other action that could have 
been taken. The purpose was ''friendly," of course, but those 
q>lendid battle-ships of ours, engineered by such able command- 
ers, could not fail to be an object-lesson to any who felt that 
the United States was too isolated to care for her own defense. 

But even in such a demonstration as this, he managed to 
include a touch of exquisite sentiment. When the great vessels 
neared the Hawaiian Islands, he ordered them to deflect their 
course to pass by and salute the tragic island of Molokai, home 
of the aflUcted lepers, so that they too should know of the pro- 
tection which America affords to its most unfortunate children. 

During those days in February, 1909, he seemed as gay as 
a boy let out of school. He was making all the arrangements 



Home Life in the White House 249 

for liis great Afiican adventure. In fact, with his usual ''pre- 
paredness/* he had bem preparing for that event for a whole 
year. Everything was accurate)^ arranged, and he and his son 
Kennit were to start immediately after he was to leave the White 
Hou^ in March. The lectures which he was to deliver a year 
from the following spring were all written and corrected. One 
afternoon in the ''Blue Bedroom^'' which I generaify occupied 
on my visits, I heard a knock at my door, and he came in with 
several rolls of paper under his ann. "It is raining/' he said, 
"and I think I won't take my ride. I want your opinion on the 
lectures I am to deliver at Oxford, in BerHn, and at the Sor- 
bonne. I should like to read them to you,^' and we settled down 
for a long delightful, quiet time "II deux." As usual, he was 
more than willing to listen to any remaik or criticism, and once 
or twice accepted my slight suggestions of what I thouj^t could 
improve his articles. 

Some people felt that my brother was often q^tistical, and 
mistook his conviction that this or that thing was right for an 
q^tistical inability to look at it any other way. When he was 
convinced that his own attitude was correct, and that for the 
good of this or that scheme no other attitude should be taken, 
then nothing could swerve him; but when, as was often the 
case, it was not a question of conviction, but of advisability, 
he was the most open-minded of men, and gladly accepted and 
pondered the point of view of any one in whom he had confi-t 
dence. I was always touched and gratified beyond measure at 
the simple and sometimes almost humble way in which he would 
listen to a difference of opinion upon my part. Occaaonally, 
after thinking it seriously ovier, he would concede that my point 
of view was right In this particular case, however, they were 
the slightest of slight . suggestions which I made, for each of 
those articles seemed to me in its own way a masterpiece. 

During that visit also occurred the last diplomatic dinner, 
always followed when he was President by the delightful, in- 
formal supper at tables set in the upper hall of the White House. 



250 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

That nig^t he was particularly gay, and many witty rqiartees 
passed between him and our beautiful and gifted friend, Mrs. 
Cabot Lodge, the friaod who had for us all, through her in- 
finite charm and brilliant intellectuality, a fascination pos- 
sessed by no other. She almost always sat at his table at the 
infonnal suppers, and, needless to say, those two were the cen- 
tre of attraction. The table at which I myself sat that nig^t 
had the distinguished presence of General Leonard Wood, G^i- 
eral Young, and the Frendi ambassador. Monsieur Jusseiand, 
one of my brother's favorite companions on the famous White 
House walks, hero of the true story of the time when on one 
of those same famous walks th^ inadvertently came to the river, 
into which my brother plunged, fioUowed immediatdy by the 
dauntless French ambassador, who refused to * ' take off his ^ves 
for fear of meeting the ladies'' I 

I spent one whole morning in the office during that visit, 
having asked my brother if I might sit quietly in a oHiier and 
listen to his interviews, to which request he gladly acceded. One 
after another, people filed in to see him. I made a few notes 
^ of the conversations. One of his first answers to some impor* 
, timate person who wished him to take a stand on some qiedal 
' aub ject (at that time he was aniious not to embarrass his suc- 
cessor, Mr. Taft, by taUng any special stands) was: ''As Napo- 
leon said to his marshals, 'I don't want to make pictures of my- 
self.'" 

In receiving Mr. Ebll, the president of the Gridiron Club, 
he remarked that he (Theodore Roosevdt) had been one of the 
few people who used these dinners as ''a field of missionary en- 
deavor." Doctor Schick, of the Dutch Reformed Churdi, in 
which he had been a regular attendant, came to arrange for a 
good-by meeting at the church. To a man who came in to see 
him on the subject of industrial peace, he replied: ''The President 
believes in conciliation in industrial problems." Endless sub jects 
were brouj^t up for his consideration, and many times I heard 
him say: ''Remember, a new man is in the saddle, and there 



Home Life in the White House 251 

can't be two Presidents after March 4th.^ These notes were 
taken at the time, February^ 19091 and are not the result of 
memory conveniently adjusted toward later happenings. 

Every time I talked with my brother on the subject of the 
f uture, he repeated the fact that he was glad to plunge into the 
wilderness, so that no one could possibly think that he wanted 
a ''finger in the pie" of the new administration. Over and over 
again he would say: ''If I am whefe they can't get at me, and 
where I cannot hear what is going on, I cannot be supposed to 
wish to interfere with the methods of my successor." 

One quiet evening when we had had a specially lovely family 
dinner, I turned to him and said: ''Theodore, I want to give 
you a real present before you go away. What do you think you 
would Eke?" His eyes ^[>arkled like a child who was about to 
receive a specially nice toy, and he said: "Do you realty want 
to make me area/ present, Pussie? I think I should like a pigskin 
library." "A pigskin library," I said, in great astonishment. 
"What is a pigskin library?" He laughed, and said: "Of course, 
I must take a good many books; I couldn't go znywhete, not 
even into jungles in Africa without a good many books. But 
also, of course, they are not veiy likely to last in ordinary bind- 
ings, imd so I want to have them all bound in pigskin, and I 
would rather have that present than any other." The next day 
he dictated a fist of the books which he wished, and the foDowing 
evening added in his own handwriting a few more. The list is 
as follows: 



BOOKS IN THE PIGSKIN LIBRARY 
Bible. 

Apocrypha. 
Borrow: Bible in Spain. 

Lavengco. 

Wild Wales. 

The Romany Rye. 
Shakeqieare. 
Spenser: Faerie Queene. 



252 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 



Marlowe. 

Mahan: Sea Power. 

Macaulay: History. 

Essays. 

Poems. 
Homer: Iliad. 

Odyssey. 
La Chanson de Roland. 
Nibdungenlied. 
Carlyle: Frederick the Great. 
Shelley: Poems. 
Bacon: Essays. 
Ixmell: Literary Essays. ' ' 

Bigbw Papers. 
Emerson: Poems. 
Longfellow. . 

Tennyson. 
Poe: Tales. 
Poems. 
Keats. 

Milton: Paradise Lost (Books I and H). 
Pante: Inferno (Carlyle's translation). 
Hbhnes: Autocrat. 

Over the Teacups. 
Bret Harte: Poems. 

Tales of thei Argonauts. 
Luck of Roaring Camp. 
Browning: Sdections. 
Crothers: Gentle Reader. 

Pardoner's Wallet. 
Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn. 

Tom Sawyer. 
The Federalist 
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
Froissart 

Gregorovius: Rome. 
Percy's Reliques. 
Euripides (Murray's translation): 

Bacdis. 

Hippolytus. 
Scott: Legend of Montrose. 
Antiquary. 



Home Life in the White House 253 



Guy Mannering. 
Rob Roy. 
Waverky. 
Cooper: Two Admirals. 

Pilot 
Dickens: Pickwick. 

Mutual Friend 
Thackeray: Vanity Fair. 
Pendennis. 



>9 



The famous pigskin library, carried on the back of ''burros, 
followed him into the jungles of Africa, and was his constant 
conqmnion at the end of long days during which he had slain 
the mighty beasts of the tangled forests. 

Immediately after that happy week at the White House, I 
was stricken by a great sorrow, the death of my youngest son 
by an accident. My brother came to me at once, and sustained 
me as no one else could have done, and his one idea during those 
next wedLS was to make me realize his constant thou|^t and 
love, even in the midst of those thrilling last days at the White 
House, when among other events he wdoomed home the great 
fleet which had con^eted its drdle of the worhi. 

A few days before the death of my boy, and immediately 
after that enchanting last visit to the house we had learned to 
regard as Theodore's natural home, he wrote me the last letter 
I received from him dated from the White House. Itwaswritten 
February 19, 1909: 

' ' Darling Corinne : Just a line to tell you what I have already 
told you, of how we shall always think of you and thank you 
when we draw on the 'Pigskin Library' in Africa. It was too 
dear of you to give it to me. That last night was the pleasantest 
function we had ever held at the White House, and I am so glad 
that you and Douglas were there. Tell Douglas he cannot imag- 
ine bow I have enjoyed the rides with him." The above was 
typewritten, but ins^ted in his own handwriting at the end of 
the note were the characteristic lines: '^You bless&l person. I 
have reveDed in having you down here. T. R." 



xm 

WALL STREET HOPES EVERY LION WILL 

DO rrs DUTY 

THE LION THAT ROOSEVELT SHOT 

Now in Elysian woods, at last foregatheied^ 
ComiacteSy we range together, sire and siie, 
We who on earth were kings, and nobly &itlieied, 
Andy regaUy, wore each his earth attire. 
How proudly at Ids bed in dawn or foaming. 
With him, the lion-hearted, I am roamingi 

—Isabel Fiske Conant. 

A GREAT thou^ quiet and perscHial demonstration came 
to Theodore Roosevelt just before he sailed for Africa. 
The heart of the people turned to him with overwhelm- 
ing affection and he received, during the last we^ in his own 
country, between fifteen and twenty thousand farewdl letters. 
Hundreds of mothers wrote him that they felt as if their own 
son were leaving them, and that their prayers would f<dlow him 
in his wanderings; hundreds of others wrote that thqr would 
not fed that the country would be safe until he should return — 
but the ''big business" men (not the ''great" business men) 
of Wall Street, according to the "bon mot" of some wag, "hoped 
every lion would do its duty." 

As my brother was leaving Oyster Bay to set sail on his great 
adventure, he wrote me that he would q>end one whole day with 
me, except for necessary business engagements, to which engage- 
ments I took him in my motor. And so my last memories of 
the time before he sailed are, as usual, of his unfailing devotion. 
On March 26 he writes again from the steamer: "Your dear 
Uttle note was handed me as I sailed, and I loved it. It was so 

aS4 



Wall Street Hopes 255 

good to see you as I did the day before. Darling sister, I think 
of you an the time. I siq>pose your children told you of the 
wild whirl of omfusion in which I said 'Goodbye.' I was very 
much touched by the number of acquaintances who came down 
to see me off. Indeed hundreds of them were not even acquain- 
tances. They came in the shape of dubs, societies, delegations, 
and even more, by scores of what might be called real 



i> 



An through his various sea trips — these sea txips rather bored 
-he writes as follows: ''There are plenty of people with 
whom it is reaUy pleasant to talk in Eng&h or in those variants 
of volapuk which with me pass for French and German." He 
encloses me a photograph of Kermit and hunself and Selous, 
the naturalist, which shows a merry moment on one of those 
same sea tsipB. In May of that year he writes from Juja Farm, 
Nairobi: 

"Really, I have been so busy that I have hieui no time to 
myself, and even have not been regularly homesick; of course, 
down at bottom I am homesick the whole time, but it isn't able 
to come to the surface, so to q>eak, because when I am not ac- 
tua% hunting, I am lying sdn because I am tired out. . . . 
This house is as pretty and comfortable as possible, and my 
host and hostess are the very kindest of the kind. I am sitting 
on a cool verandah with vines growing over the trellises, having 
just returned from a morning hunt in which I killed a pjrthon 
and an impab antelope. Yesterday I killed two antelopes, and 
the day before, a rhino and a hqppo, and the day before that, 
Kermit kiUed a leopard which charged him viciously after maul- 
ing one of the beaters. I have also killed six lions, — ^fourofthem 
big ones. I am sunburned and healthy, and look Eke a burfy 
and rather unkempt ruffian. 

''Kermit has really done very weB; vHe is very handy, both 
cool and daring, in fact, rather too daring sometimes. 

"Darling sister, I think of you contmua%, and would so 
love to see you. ..." 



2S6 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Later, on his xetum to the same fann after an extended hunt* 
ing tnpf he says: 

^'I have worked very hard writing the articles about this 
trip, and have put my heart into them, for this trq> has been to 
me one of absorbing interest; but of course, I haven't any idea 
whether I have written anything worth reading* 

''I am hsippy to say that I know nothing whatever of politics 
at home, and I hope to keq> in the same blessM state of igno- 
rance until I return next June. Then I shall take up political 
work again, but probably not in any direct partisan sense, — 
that is, I mil go in with tbc Outtaok people on such matteis 
as the conservation of natural resources, the control of big cor- 
porations, and how to deal with socialism, and the like." 

The above shows clearly how strong were his intentions not 
to interfere in any way with the administration then in power. 

On June 21, in a letter headed ^'On Safari," he writes: 

''I am so bu^ writiDg my ScrUmer articles that I have but 
little time to write family letters, except of course, the letters to 
£dith» I have had plenty to write about for Scnlmer\ but it 
IS not always easy to write in the field, and I do not really know 
how I have done it Sometimes wlien I come in early from a 
hunt, I just point blank refuse to write at all, and ^>end an hour 
or two reading a book from the 'Pigskin Libraiy,' whidh has 
been the utmost possible comfort and pleasure. Fond thougjh I 
am of hunting and of wiklemess life, I couki not thoroufl^ 
cAjoy either if I were not able, from time to time, to turn to my 
books. I am anxiously looking for news of your Helen and the 
baby that is to be. 

'^Kermit is a great pleasure to me. My trouble with him b 
that he is altogether too boM,— pushing, daring, almost to red:- 



n 



Writing in October to my husband (there never was a more 
devoted fnendshf> th^n exbted between him and my huBband), 
he says: 

''You old trump, Doug^. I really do believe that you aie 



Wall Street Hopes 257 

about the best fellow and the staunchest friend alive. Your 
letter was really delightful. I am so glad Bridges told you that 
they liked the Scribner articles. I only hope they guess right 
as far as the public is concerned. 

" I hope the Robinson Minimus or Minima has arrived. [Re- 
ferring to the expected baby in my eldest son's family.] Of course, 
to go back to Henderson was terribly hard for you both at first, 
but it would have been the worst possible mistake to have avoided 
it or left it. The nettle had to be grasped." 

What a characteristic sentence ! It had been veiy hard to 
go back to our old home, but, as he said, ^' the nettle had to be 
grasped." I don't think in his whole life he failed to grasp any 
nettle that had to be grasped. In a letter of the same date to 
me he says, referriag again to our sorrow: ''As our lives draw 
toward the end, we are sure to meet bitter sorrow, and we must 
meet it undauntedly. I have just been writing Cabot and 
Nannie [they had lost their talented son, the young poet George 
Cabot Lodge] and again, there was nothing for me to say. . . . 
It has been a horrible wrench for me to leave Edith during this 
trip, but I am sure I have done the wise thing from every stand- 
point." 

On January 21, 1910, as he is nearing civilization once more, 
in a letter dated on the Upper Nile, he writes: ''Certainly our 
trip has been a complete success. If we did not shoot another 
thing, it would still remain unique, for the great quantity of 
skins and other scientific specimens collected for the museum; 
and personally, I do not care if I do not fire off my rifle again. 
I have enjoyed the trip to the full and feel that it was well 
worth making. I am naturally overjoyed that I am to see Edith 
in less than eight weeks, and I shall never go away from her 
again if I can help it. The 'Pigskin Library' continues to be 
a wellspring of comfort. Darling sister, I love you very much. 
Your devoted brother." 

On March 10, 1910, in another letter dated Upper White 
Nile, he says: 



2s8 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

"Darling sister mine: At Gondokoro I found your welcome 
letter; and on the steamer, descending the iioo miles to Khar-- 
toum, bumping into sand banks, and doing various odd things, 
I send you this line of answer. 

'^Joe Alsop [my only daughter had just become engaged 
to Joseph Wright Alsop, of Connecticut] represents to me what 
I like to think of as the ideal American citizen— pretty strong 
praise, and I mean eveiy word of it. I should be overjoyed if 
Ethel married a man like him. He is the big, brave, strong, 
good man of sound common sense, who works hard in the couip- 
try^ who does his duty in politics, who would make a fine type 
of soldier in dvil war. I have always put him in the same dass 
with Bob Ferguson, and with Pinchot, Garfield, Cooley, and the 
rest of the * Tennis Cabinet.' " 

His '^Tennis Cabinet" shared the same warm comer of his 
heart in which his "Rough Riders'' were firmly ensconced ! 

His last letter from the White Nile, March 14, 1910, has in 
it the foreboding of what was to come. ''Ugh ! " he writes, " tell 
Dou^as that I hate the prospect of being dragged into politics 
at home. I don't like the political outlook." Even then, al- 
though regretting the probability, he realized the imminence of 
being ''dragged into politics at home." 

His wonderful reception in Egypt and the admiring recogni- 
tion shown him by kings and potentates when he emerged from 
his year of seclusion in the jungle are well known to the world. 
Emperors and monarchs and presidents vied with each other 
to do him honor, and never was there a more triumphant prog- 
ress than that of Citizen Theodore Roosevelt through the great 
countries that had known him as President of the United States. 
His tales later of the various potentates were amusing to the 
last degree; everything he recounted was told in the most good- 
natured, although humorous, spirit, and in many cases he spoke 
with warm regard and even affection for the rulers who welcomed 
him so warmly to their homes and lives. He referred to the King 
of Italy as "a very intelligent and really good man." He had 



Wall Street Hopes 259 

never fdt that the Emperor of Germany was a great man, nor 
did he change his opinion, in spite of the many courtesies shown 
him by the Elaiser, although he enjoyed his experiences in Ger- 
many and was much interested when asked to review the great 
German aimy by the Emperor. Of all the reigning monarchs, 
he seemed to think with the most affection of the King of Norway, 
to whom he paid the characteristic compliment of saying that 
he ''would enjoy having him settle down quietly near him at 
Oyster Bay/' and he also spoke with regard of Alfonso of Spain. 
He gave an especially interesting account of the funeral cere- 
monies of King Edward Vn, to which ceremonies he was ap- 
pointed special envoy; but most of all he wrote with keen de- 
light of his ''bird walk" throu^ the New Forest and over the 
adjacent lowlands and uplands with that fellow bird-lover, the 
secretary for foreign affairs, then Sir Edward, now Earl, Grey. 
Nothing could have been more characteristic of Theodore Roose- 
velt than the way in which that walk had been arranged. 

Before he left America to plunge into the African jungle, 
he wrote to Lord Biyce in England to the effect that on his re- 
turn, practically a year and a quarter from the date on which he 
wrote, he would like some one versed in the bird-songs of England 
to walk with him for a day at least to acquaint him with the notes 
of the British feathered singers. He knew, he said, the appear- 
ance and habits of eveiy English bird, but had never had the 
chance to match the bird to the song, and he was veiy anxious 
to do so. Lord Biyce happened to meet Sir Edward Grey, the 
secretary for foreign affairs, and laughin^y mentioned the de- 
sire on the part of President Roosevelt to make this somewhat 
premature engagement, and expressed uncertainty as to whom 
he could choose for the President's companion. Sir Edward 
immediately offered himself, saying that the knowledge of bird 
song and lore happened to be one of his assets, but even Sir Ed- 
ward felt that the experiences with the mighty creatures of the 
jungle, the excitement of the political furor aroused by a cer* 
tain speech of Theodore Roosevelt's in Cairo, and the triunq>hal 



26o My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

procession through other parts of Europe might, perhaps, have 
effaced from his memory his desire for a walk in English wood- 
lands. But not at all. Sir Edward Grey himself told me, not 
long ago, that on the ist of May, 1910, several weeks before he 
was expected in England, there came a note reminding the British 
secretary for foreign affairs that the ex-President of the United 
States wished to be his companion for twenty-four hours at least 
of remote enchantment ''far from the madding crowd," and so 
when the time came they started together and tramped through 
the New Forest, and later over lush meadows inundated by 
^ring rains. Earl Grey told me that although he had often 
taken this particular walk, he had never encountered the slight- 
est difficulty during the transit, but to be with Theodore Roose- 
velt w^ synonymous with adventure of some kind. While 
traversing a usually innocuous meadow, they suddenly came 
upon a piece of flooded lowland, in this particular case so flooded 
that unless they deflected or retraced their stqis, it would mean 
walking breast-high in water for some distance. The secretary 
for foreign affairs referred the decision about the situation to the 
ez-President of the United States, and, needless to say, the man 
who was accustomed to swim the Potomac River in his stride, did 
not deflect his course because of the flooded English meadow. 
Later, as they stood under a tree drying themselves in the after- 
noon sunshine, a very sweet, delicate song was heard. My 
brother's keen ears cauj^t the trickling notes, and turning with 
vivid interest to his companion, he said: "Of all the songs we 
have heard to-day, that is the only one which resembles in any de- 
gree an American-bird song," and he listened eagerly as the oblig- 
ing bird repeated its dainty music. "That," said Earl Grey, 
"is the crested wren." "It is a wren also that sings like that 
in America," said my brother. Earl Grey was very much in- 
terested in this, and a few days afterward, meeting a great bird 
expert in the British Museum, he repeated the remark of my 
brother in connection with the fact that the crested wren's song 
was the only one of any English bird resembling the song of an 



Wall Street Hopes 261 

American bird, and the e]^>ert confirmed what my brother had 
said. 

Mr. John Burroughs used to say, although he had given his 
whole life to ornithology, that Theodore Roosevelt, to whom 
in later years it became only a recreation, was almost as well 
informed on the subject as he was. 

In June, 1910, he returned from Europe, and never in the 
annals of American history has such a recq)tion been accorded 
to a private citizen. Frankly, I do not think that Theodore 
Roosevelt was ever regarded as a private citizen; he was always 
a public possession I What a day it was I We went to meet 
him in a special launch, and from the moment of his lading 
until he finally reached his beloved home at Oyster Bay there 
was nothing but one great call of delight from his fellow citizens 
to the man who still stood to them for the whole of America. 
His triumphs, the adulation which he had received from foreign 
countries, epitomized to them the regard and respect poured 
out to the United States by those other countries of the world. 
The great crowds of his waving, cheering fellow citizens lined 
the avenue of his triumphant progress, but when he finally joined 
us at the house at which the family were assembled as a vantage* 
point, he seemed just the same sweet, simple, joyous, and un- 
ostentatious comrade as of yore. 

That very first day he gave us the most amusing accounts of 
some of his European experiences, humorously describing in^ 
formal lunches in Buckingham Palace, when the children of King 
George and Queen Mary behaved very much as ''young Amer- 
ica" is accustomed to behave. He also gave us what our family 
has always been pleased to term a ''personal charade" of certain 
events, eq>ecially one moment when the Kaiser behaved rather 
like an arrogant schoolboy to one of the other royalties. He 
laughingly referred to a message from the Kaiser during his 
stay in London, when the above potentate sent him word that 
he, William, would be glad to give him (ez-President Roose- 
velt) three-quarters of an hour the next day of his precious time ! 



262 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

And ex-President Roosevelt in return sent him a rapid message 
saying that he would be delighted to see William, but he regretted 
that he could only give him twenty-five minutes I He regaled 
us for a long while with majxy such amusing stories, and then 
went home to his beloved Sagamore HilL 

The following day an incident occurred which had a certain 
prophetic quality about it. A great dinner was to be given to 
him by Robert Collier, and ^s usual with his loving thought of 
me (I had just returned from a trip aroimd the world and was 
in very ill health) he wished to come to my house to spend the 
night so as to see me. He arranged to be with me at five o'clock 
in the afternoon, thus to have a long, quiet talk before the dinner. 
I came in from the country and had afternoon tea waiting for 
him in my library. A half-hour passed, and then another half- 
hour, and I b^gan to get distinctly nervous, because he was the 
most prompt of individuals^ At a little after six he arrived look- 
ing jaded and worried, and as he took his cup of tea, he turned to 
me and said: ''A very unpleasant thing happened which made 
me late. As you see, I am dressed perfectly inconq>icuousty, 
and I slipped into Soibners [his publishers] a little before five 
to say a word or two about my ^African Game Trails.' [Scrib- 
ners at that time was situated at 2 2d Street and Fifth Avenue.] 
When I went in there was no crowd at all, but somebody must 
have seen me enter the bookstore, and when I came out a short 
while afterward, a huge crowd had assembled, and literally would 
not let me pass. They wanted to carry me on their shoulders; 
they wanted to do utterly impossible and objectionable things; 
and I realized at once that this was not the friendly recq)tion 
of yesterday, but that it rq)re8ented a certain hysterical quality 
which boded ill for my future. That type of crowd, feeling that 
kind of way, means that within a very short time they will be 
throwing rotten ^ggs at me. I may be on the crest of the wave 
now, but mark my words, the attitude of that crowd means 
that they will soon try to help me into the trough of the wave." 
He was so impressed by this incident that that night at the Col- 



Wall Street Hopes 263 

lier dinner he repeated and enlarged upon the theme of the 
crest and the trough of the wave. 

Yet^ in looking back over my brother's life, I do not think 
it can be said that in the true sense of the word he ever experi- 
enced the trough of the wave. The great movement which re- 
sulted in the Progressive party, instigated by internal dissensions 
in the Republican party, brought Democratic rule into our coim- 
try, but, although he was defeated for pubfic office, it did not 
throw him into the trough of the wave, for in reality he emerged 
from that great movement the leader of the majority of the Re- 
publican party, as was shown on Election day in November, 
1912, when the vote for Theodore Roosevelt was infinitely larger 
than that cast for the ''rq;ular" Republican candidate, William 
Howard Taf t 



XIV 
THE GREAT DENIAL 

Wbo would not be 

A baffled Moses with the eyes to see 

The far fruition of the Promised Land! 



How can we manage with our Brother gone. 

We smaller folk who looked to him to voice our voicelessness? 

We do not call him to come back from that free plane where now he 

moves untrammeled — 
Un-beset by littleness, by envy of his power to read our hearts, 
And blazon forth the message that he found there. 
So that those in highest place among us needs must hear 
And heed the will of us — ^the silent ones — 
Who work, and think, and fed. 
And are ^nerica. 

— Gene Stanton Baker. 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT had been at home but a few 
short weeks when he realized fully that the policies so 
dear to his heart, and which he had left in what he con- 
sidered absolutely safe-keeping, had not been carried out. Al- 
ready, in Congress, a large niunber of the younger Republicans 
had combined together as what were then called ^'The Insur- 
gents." In other words, the men who had fully believed in the 
policies of Theodore Roosevelt, who felt that no proper progress 
could be made toward better government of the United States un- 
less those policies were followed, had met on all sides with great 
disappointment; and although the ez-President had hoped to 
keep as absolutely '^ out of politics " as he had done in the African 
jungle, these disheartened and disappointed men, rq)resenting 

264 



The Great Denial 265 

largely the younger and more ardent spirits of his country, turned 
to him for leadership. These reminiscences of my brother are 
not a biography, nor are they a political analysis of his public 
life, and I must therefore pass over many occurrences, the most 
important of which was his efifort in the autumn of 1910 to defeat 
the Barnes-Tammany combination in New York State by run- 
ning Mr. Henry L. Stimson for governor, which fina% resulted 
in the position he took in January, 1912. 

During the eighteen months previous he had been contribut- 
ing editor of The Ouilook, and my letters from him in 191 1 were 
few and far between, as we were frequently together. They 
were, as usual, full of deep interest in and affection for me and 
mine, and as at that time I b^an to publish verse, first anony- 
mously and then imder my own name, he gives me generous 
praise in a note dated August 21, 1911: ^'I saw B. the other 
day. He told me about the acceptance of your second poem, 
and spoke most strongly about it, and he, just like everyone 
else who has talked to me about the poem, dwelt upon its power 
and purpose. [The poem in question was ''The Call of Brother- 
hood."] It is not merely pretty, pleasant, trivial, the kind of 
thing a boy or girl of twenty could have written; it is written 
about and for those who have toiled and suffered and worked, 
and who have known defeat and triiunph; and it is written by 
one of them." In his busy life, called upon endlessty in every 
direction, he never failed to encourage any effort of mine worthy 
of encouragement, nor indeed to discourage any effort of mine 
of which he did not approve. "If convenient,'' he adds, ''I will 
come in about five next Friday for an hour's talk with you and 
to see the other verses. I am sending you a zebra skin which I 
hope you will like." 

On October 5, 1911, he writes, referring to a political situa- 
tion in Herkimer County, where my son had run for state as- 
semblyman, and where certain unsavory methods had been 
used to defeat him (later, through legal procedure, he was given 
his seat) : ''Teddy has been defrauded by as outrageous a piece 



266 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

of political scoundrdism as I have ever known. Of course, this 
scoundrelism could succeed, only because last year, the big busi- 
ness men, the great 'Conservatives/ and professional 'Intellec- 
tuals' and the like, joined in securing the victoiy of Tammany 
at the polls, and the consequent enthronement of the Barnes- 
Sherman crowd in our party. If only we could have elected 
Hany Stimson for governor, there would not have been an efifort 
made to handle Teddy as he has been handled.'' Already his 
indignation was begioning to wax hot against certain methods 
much in vogue in the Republican party at that time. 

He had had no intention of running for the presidential 
nomination in 191 2, and, indeed, in the autumn of 191 1 told 
many of his most faithful supporters that he was very much 
averse to doing so; but^already a swelling tide of disapproval 
of the Taf t administration had increased in volume to such an 
extent that it swept over a large part of the country. The In- 
surgents pleaded for a definite leaderslup, and to them, and to 
many who did not call themselves by that name, there was but 
one leader whom they were williDg to follow, and that was Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. 

The force of this great wave culminated in the letter of the 
seven governors in January, 1912, a letter in which those same 
seven governors begged him to take, openly, the leadershq> of 
Progressive Republicanism, and to allow his name to be used 
as a presidential nominee in the June convention of 19x2. Just 
before that letter was published, he writes in his usual sweet 
way in connection with a visit which he and Mrs. Roosevelt 
had intended to pay me in New York (they were at Sagamore 
Hill). After q)eaking of an iUness which prevented Mrs. Roose- 
velt from coming to me, he said, knowing that I had made cer- 
tain engagements for them: ''Do you wish to have me come 
alone ? Do exactiy what you think best. I will be in for Tues- 
day nig^t in any case, and will be at your house as agreed. I 
don't know when I have ever enjoyed an}rthing more than my 
lunch at Fannie's [our dear friend Mrs. James Russell Parsons], 



The Great Denial 267 

— ^it was a real feast of LucuUus, — only far better." This letter 
is very boyish and content with friends and family, and most 
unlike a man absorbed in schemes of sinister usurpation, schemes 
of which he was so soon to be accused. 

In the library at my own house in New York City, a fateful 
meeting took place shortly after this last letter came. I confess 
to having had serious doubts as to what his answer should be 
to that request of the seven governors. Personally, I felt the 
sacrifice asked of him was almost too great. I realized perfectly 
the great struggle before him and all that it probably would 
mean, and it seemed to me that he had already given all that was 
required of just such service to his beloved country. But, just as 
he felt in 1898 that, having preached war upon Spain, he must 
take active part in that war, so in 1912 he came to fed strongly 
that, having inaugurated certain policies as President which 
had not been carried out by his successor — having preached 
the necessiQr for industrial legislation which had not been 
backed by those in public authority^ — it was his duty to bare his 
breast to the '^sUngs and arrows of outrageous fortune,'' and 
accept the position of leader of_Progressive Republicanism in 
order to try to translate into practical reality the ideals which 
he had upheld before his countrymen. His answer to the seven 
governors pledged himself to such leadershq>, and the great 
upheaval of 191 2 took place. 

Never before in his varied career had Theodore Roosevelt 
felt such a sense of loneliness, for many of his nearest and dearest 
friends were not in sympathy with some of his beliefs in 1912. 
I shall never forget the great meeting at Carnegie Hall, when 
he proclaimed ''the faith that was in him." He was like an in- 
spired crusader that night when he cast away the notes from 
which he had occasionally been reading and made the magnif- 
icent peroration in which he proclaimed the fact that his doc- 
trine was ''Spend and Be Spent," and that no man worthy the 
name of man would not be willing to be an instrument for the 
success of his ideals — a broken instrument if need be. He re- 



268 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

turned after that thrilling speech to my house, and we sat a 
long while talking over the serious step he had taken and the 
possibilities the future held for him, and I felt that there was 
a sense of dedication about him such as I believe the martyrs 
of old must have felt. 

In spite of the storm that broke around him after this 
declaration, in spite of the manifold activities into which he im- 
mediately cast himself, he takes the time to write to me, March 
5, 191 2, when my infant grandchild, bom the month before, had 
died of whooping-cough: ''My darling Sister: You have in- 
deed been through the waters of bitterness. The little baby I 
I love little babies so, and I think of my own little grand- 
daughter, and I mourn with you and Douglas. Now,. I think 
only with a pang of our lovely day last Simday. [We had spent 
that Sunday with him at Oyster Bay.] If I could have come up 
to Albany I would have done so. Ever your devoted brother.'' 

The great convention of 1912 took place, and through the 
ruling of the chairman certain delegates pledged to Theodore 
Roosevelt were dq>rived of their seats, a ruling which meant 
his defeat as Republican candidate. I was ill at the time and 
could not be present on that epoch-making occasion. I only 
know that its result after the above ruling was considered by 
my brother absolutely inevitable, and that he never regarded 
that result, as did so many people, as the most unfortunate dr- 
ciunstance of his life. Writing a year and a half later for the 
Century Magazine^ in October, 1913, he says: ''Fundamentally 
the reason for the existence of the Progressive Party was foimd 
in two facts: first, the absence of real distinctions between the 
old parties which correspond to those parties; and, second, the 
determined refusal of the men in control of both parties to use 
the party organizations and their control of the Government, 
for the purpose of dealing with the problems really vital to our 
people. ... A party which alternately nonunated Mr. Bryan 
and Mr. Parker for President, and a party wherein Messrs. Pen- 
rose, LaFoUette, and Smoot, stand as the three brothers of 



The Great Denial 269 

leadership, can by no possibility supply the need of this country 
for efficient and coherent governmental action as regards the 
really vital questions of the day/' In the same article he pro- 
ceeds to anal}rze the reasons for the formation of the Progressive 
Party, and continues: 

''The problems connected with the trusts, the problems con- 
nected with child labor, and all similar matters can be solved 
only by affirmative national action. No party is progressive 
which does not set the authority of the National Government 
as supreme in these matters. No party is progressive which 
does not give to the people the right to determine for them- 
selves, after due opportunity for deliberation, but without end- 
less difficulty and delay, what the standards of social and in- 
dustrial justice shall be; and, furthermore, the right to insist 
upon the servants of the people, legislative and judicial alike, 
paying heed to the wishes of the people as to what the law 
of the land shall be. The Progressive party believes with 
Thomas Jefferson, with Andrew Jackson, with Abraham Lin- 
coln, that this is a government of the people, to be used for the 
people, so as to better the condition of the average man and 
average woman of the nation in the intimate and homely con- 
cerns of their daily lives; and thus to use the government means 
that it must be used after the manner of Hamilton and Lincoln 
to serve the purposes of Jefferson and Lincoln. 

''We are for the people's rights. Where these rights can 
best be obtained by ezerdse of the powers of the State, there 
we are for SUUes^ rights. Where they can best be obtained by 
the exercise of the powers of the National Government, there 
we are for National rights. We are not interested in this as an 
abstract doctrine; we are interested in it concretely. . . . We 
believe in the principle of a living wage. We hold that it is ruin- 
ous for all our people, if some of our people are forced to subsbt 
on a wage such that body and soul alike are stunted." 

Referring to the Industrial and Social Justice plank of the 
platform of the Progressive party, he continues: 



270 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

''The propositions are definite and concrete. They repre- 
sent for the first time in our political history the specific and 
reasoned purpose of a great party to use the resources of the 
government in sane fashion for industrial betterment. • • . 

''To simi up, then, our position is, after all, simple. We 
believe that the government should concern itself chiefly with 
the matters that are of most importance to the average man 
and average woman, and that it should be its special province 
to aid in making the conditions of life easier for these ordinary 
men and ordinary women, who compose the great bulk of our 
people. To this end we believe that the people should have 
direct control over their own governmental agendes, and that 
when this control has been secured, it should be used with reso* 
lution, but with sanity and self-restraint, in the effort to make 
conditions fairer and better for the men and women of the 
nation." 

I have inserted this quotation from his own writings in 1913, 
for it gives dearly the objects and aims of that party, bom at 
Chicago amid scenes of almost religious enthusiasm in June, 
191 2, nor did that enthusiasm wane for one single moment 
during the following months; on the contrary, it rose to the 
heighths of dedication. 

There were some who lost their sense of proportion, but by 
far the greater number of those who followed Tlieodore Roose- 
vdt in that extraordioary campaign were imbued with a higji 
sense of a " Great Cause," a cause which had never before been 
translated into the common sense of possible achievement. The 
New York State Progressive Convention met at Syracuse, and 
at that assemblage I was able to be present, and whatever doubts 
might have been in my breast before were swq>t away by a 
deep conviction of the fact that the Progressive Party was the 
true interpretation of the highest ideal of democracy. 

Just about the time of the Progressive Convention at Syra- 
cuse, an artide appeared, written by a dtizen of UnadiUa, 
N. Y., C. C. Penny by name, in which the above dtizen gives 



The Great Denial 271 

the reasons which induced him to vote for ''Teddy,'' as he 
affectionately calls the colonel. 

''To the Editor of the UHca Daily Press.^— 

''Having had the question put up to me as to what Roose- 
velt has ever done politically to better conditions, I would sub- 
mit the following: First, — ^What did Mr. Roosevelt do as Presi- 
dent that he should not have done in the public interest, or that 
was dangerous or hurtful to business? Mr. Roosevelt's inter- 
vention in the coal strike benefited all consimiers; Mr. Roose- 
velt is responsible for the Pure Food and Drugs Act; the open 
door to American commerce with China; the settlement of the 
Russo-Japan War; Panama Canal project; conservation of 
natural resources; reduction of interest-bearing debt by more 
than ninety million dollars; settlement of the Alaska boundary 
dispute; an act calling for the extension of forest reserves; nar 
tional irrigation act; emplojrers' liability act; safety appliances 
and reg^tilation of railroad employees' hours of labor. — ^Was Mr. 
Roosevelt's work in bringing about the settlement of the Russo- 
Japan War dangerous and hurtful to business? Was Roose- 
velt's Panama Canal project dangerous and hurtful to busi- 
ness? Was his movement for the conservation of our natural 
resources dangerous and hurtful to business? These are a few 
of the things which he suggested and carried through with the 
help of his followers. Besides, he reconunended many other re- 
forms such as Postal Savings Bank, Parcels Post, and Inheri- 
tance Tax and Income Tax which he had not time to carry 
through during his last term. 

''All these, it seems to me, are reforms to better the con- 
ditions of the great mass of people. The Progressive platform 
has been growing for the last sixteen years all through the North- 
west, and West and South, only waiting for a man to come out, 
bold enough to take the lead. Mr. Roosevelt, it seems, has dared 
to take this step, and whether we win or lose, it is a step forward 
to the betterment of the conditions of all who toil and consume. 



272 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

I have always voted the Republican ticket, but I consider that 
true Republican principles at this time rest with the Progressive 
Party, and I shall vote for that party this Fall, and for Teddy, 
win or lose," 

In October that year my volume of poems called by the title 
of its first poem, ''The Call of Brotherhood," was published, 
and my brother writes me at once, though in the midst of pressing 
duties: ''I love 'The Call of Brotherhood'; somehow it seems 
to express just what we are now battling for in the political arena. 
Well, the feeling, the longing, the desire, the determination you 
have made throb in these poems, also make it impossible for us 
to sit in fat content and not strive for better things in actual 
life. When we felt rather inarticulately, just what you have 
written, we simply couldn't refrain from the efifort [he refers 
to the Progressive Party] as a practical means to realize high 
ideals. That is what we must do with high ideals, — ^apply them 
and try to live up to them, and to make them work. — Joe and 
Teddy have done wonderful work; and so has Douglas. . . . 
I seem to have cost my friends much in all kinds of ways in this 
campaign; that was one of the reasons why I so hated to go 
into it." Many people misjudged his motives and thought that 
he went into it for selfish purposes; never was there a more mis- 
taken conception of the actions of a patriot 

In a letter written September i, he says: "I am just leaving 
for the West. It has been a very interesting fight, and never 
was there a fight better worth making, but the exertion is tre- 
mendous, and I look forward to Election Day as the end of a 
battle." 

During that Western trip, he had one of his greatest per- 
sonal ovations. One of the Western newspapers says: 

"In Portland, Oregon, the dty practically stopped business 
and turned out to receive its guest. In each dty, the personal 
element of the greeting was remarkable. No one was thinking 
of Colonel Roosevdt in connection with his past office as Presi- 



The Great Denial 273 

dent. He was 'Roosevelt.' It was 'Hello Teddy' and 'Hurrah 
for Teddy' everywhere along the densely packed streets where 
he appeared. His speeches to these multitudes were neither 
original nor new, but the people understood them. The enthu- 
siasm of these western dties for the ex-President seems almost 
fabulous. At Portland, hundreds of school children escorted 
the automobile. Women brought their children, cripples were 
wheeled to horse blocks, men climbed on cornices and pediments, 
mothers of twins pressed to the side of the car, people literally 
blackened sidewalks, residence verandas, windows of houses, 
even the trees. At Tacoma a woman was heard to remark, ' If 
this ex-President has lost his popularity, I would hate to be in 
a crowd that had gathered to see an ex-President who had not 
lost his popularity,' — ^and everywhere he preached the common- 
sense doctrine: — 

"Now friends, what I have said to you is pretty elemen- 
tary, — so elementary that it comes mighty near being common- 
place, but I will tell you that the truths that really count are 
the elementary truths. The individual whom we respect is not 
merely the brilliant individual. The man whom we wish our 
sons to resemble is the man who has the ordinary virtues de- 
veloped to more than the ordinary degree." 

He himself believed that he was not a man of genius but 
only a man with average talents, talents which by sheer deter- 
mination and will-power he had developed to a more than ordi- 
nary degree. 

Shortly after the ovation in Oregon, he writes on September 
15 from San Francisco: "Of course this trip is inconceivably 
wearing, but what a fine fight it is, anyhow !" To him it was a 
great crusade for the right, and his soul was at white heat in 
the cause of righteousness. 

Later came the dramatic moment in Milwaukee when he 
received in his breast the bullet of a would-be assassin. He pro- 
tected the man, believing him to be iosane, from the angry crowd 
who would have gladly torn him limb from limb; and then 



274 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

proceeded, though bleeding from an open wound, to make what 
he fully believed would probably be the last speech that he would 
ever make in this world. The doctors could not influence him 
to give up the speech, for he said that should it prove to be his 
last, it was all the more important that he should make it. But, 
thank Heaven, it was not his last I 

During his convalescence in the hospital in Chicago, he sent 
me one of his sympathetic letters about another recently pub- 
lished poem, and also replied to a letter from Sir George 
Trevelyan as foUows: '^I must say I have never understood 
public men who got nervous about assassination. For the last 
eleven years I have, of course, thoroughly understood that I 
might at any time be shot, and probably would be shot some- 
time. I think I have come off uncommonly well. What I can- 
not understand is any serious-minded public man not being so 
absorbed in the great, vital questions with which he has to deal, 
as to exclude thoughts of assassination. I don't think this is 
a matter of courage at all. I think it a question of the major 
interest driving out the minor interest. Ezactiy as with the 
army, — a private may have qualms, — ^not so a General. He is 
responsible for more than his personal safety. It is not a ques- 
tion of courage, it is a question of perspective, of proper propor- 
tion." Nothing has ever been more in keeping with the actions 
of Theodore Roosevelt than the above sentence: ''it is a ques- 
tion of the major interest driving out the minor interest." With 
him, all through his life, the sense of proportion was a prominent 
part of his make-up. The ''major interest" always drove out 
the "minor interest," and so strong was his sense of responsibil- 
ity, so absorbed was he in the great affairs of his country, that 
the thought of possible assassination never entered his valiant 
breast. 

The greatest moment of all that inspiring period of his life 
came late in October, at the end of the campaign, when Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, the bullet still in his breast, but miraculously 
restored to health and strength, came to the dty of his birth 



The Great Denial 275 

to make the final q>eech of the Progressive campaign at Madi- 
son Square Garden. Not only was the spirit of the Crusade 
higher than ever, but the danger so lately experienced by their 
leader had given to his followers an exaltation never surpassed 
at any time in our political histoiy. I have always been glad 
that for some imexplained reason the pass which had been 
given to me that night for my motor was not accepted by the 
policeman in charge, and I, my husband, my son Monroe, and 
our friend Mrs. Parsons were obliged to take our places in the 
cheering, laughing, singing crowd which formed in line many 
blocks below the Garden to walk up to the entrance-door. 
How it swayed and swung I how it throbbed with life and ela- 
tion ! how imbued it was with an earnest party ambition, and 
yet, with a deep and genuine religious fervor. Had I lived my 
whole life only for those fifteen minutes during which I marched 
toward the Garden already full to overflowing with my brother's 
adoring followers, I should have been content to do so. We 
could hardly get into the building, and indeed had to dimb 
up the fire-escape, which we were only allowed to do after 
making it well known that I was the sister of the 'Xolonel." 
(There never was but one '^ Colonel" in American history!) 
The whole meeting was one of an ineffable and intense emo- 
tional quality. We could hear the singing and the cheers of the 
thousands outside on the street, as inside my brother came 
forward to the platform, and the vast audience rose to its feet 
to acclaim its hero. Such moments do not often occur in a life- 
time, and when they do, they leave in their wake a wonderful 
sense of what the highest type of religion should mean — a reli- 
gion selfless as the Christlike faith upon which all true religion 
is foimded. 

A few days later, Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic though 
minority candidate, was elected President of the United States. 



XV 

WmSPERINGS OF WAR 

SAGAMORE HILL 

He is a moose, 

Scarred, battered from the hmiters, thickets, stones: 

Some finest tips of antlers broken oS, 

And eyes where images of ancient things 

FUt back and forth across them, keeping still 

A certain slmnberous indifference, 

Or wisdom, it may be. 

— ^Edgar Lee Masters. 

Rightly to be great 

Is not to stir, without great argument. 
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw 
When Honour's at the stake. 

— ^Hamlet. 

NO man in America ever received the backing of so large 
a personal following as did Theodore Roosevelt in the 
election of 191 2, but owing to the fact that opinion was 
divided, the Democratic party, although a minority parly, was 
put in power. It has been the habit of some to speak of 
my brother as having split the Rq>ublican parly. This has 
always seemed to me an unfair criticism. It was proved by 
the actual vote at the polls that the larger half of what up to 
that time had been the Rq>ublican party was in favor of Theo- 
dore Roosevelt for President. His majority over Mr. Taf t was 
imquestioned. A minority, not a majority, disrupts a party. 
Nothing is truer, however, than that a really great man cannot 
be defeated. He can lose official position, he can see the office 
which he craved because of its potential power for right doing 
pass into the hands of another; but in the higher sense of the 

276 



Whisperings of War 277 

word he cannot be defeated if his object has been righteousness^ 
if his inner vision has been the true betterment of his country. 

And so during the years that followed 191 2, Theodore Roose- 
velt, although holding no official position, became more than 
ever the leader of a great portion of the people of America. Loyal 
as he was, he felt that having (as he phrased it) 'Med a vast 
army into the wilderness/' he must stand by them through 
thick and tliin^ 

In 1913, having been asked to make certain addresses in 
South America, he decided to accq>t the invitation. But be- 
fore sailing he went to Rochester, N. Y., to make a speech, and 
arranged that my husband and I shoidd meet him and have 
an evening quietly with him. Immediately after that there 
was a great farewell dinner to him in New York, at the Hotel 
Astor. The crowd was suffocating. It seemed as if the enthu- 
siasm for him and for Progressive prindples was even more 
poignant than the year before — perhaps the realization that their 
leader was to leave them, even for a comparatively short time, 
increased the ardor of the convictions of his followers — and the 
spirit of that evening was so vital, so dedicated in quality, that 
it wiU never fade from my mind. The next day he and Mrs. 
Roosevelt sailed for the Argentine Rq>ublic, and within a few 
months she returned home, and he again lost himself in a new 
adventure. The little boy of six in tibe nursery at 20th Street 
had read with fervent interest of the adventures of the great 
explorer LivingstoiL He had achieved his ambition to follow 
those adventures as a mighty hunter in Africa; he had achieved 
many another ambition, but none was more intense with him 
than the desire to put a so-called ''River of Doubt" on the map 
of the world. 

Again Kermit was his companion, and the latter has given, 
as no one else could give, the most vivid description of that trip 
in his book called ''The Happy Hunting Grounds." In that 
book he describes his father's desperate illness, and his heroic 
and unflinching courage when, with a temperature of one hun- 



278 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

dred and five, he struggled on through the mazes of the jungle, 
weak and weary, unselfishly begging his companions to leave 
him to die, for he felt that his condition endangered the pos- 
sibility of their escape alive from their difficulties. As in Africa, 
so in South America his tireless energy, even when weakened by 
illness, never failed to accomplish his puipose, and not only did 
he put the ''River of Doubt" on the map — a river which from 
that time forth was called Rio Teodoro, after Theodore Roose- 
velt, the explorer — ^but during those suffering, exhausting weeks 
he never once failed to keep his promise to his publishers, and 
to write, on the spot, the incidents of each day's adventures. 
Robert Bridges, of Scribners, has shown me the water-soaked 
manuscript, written in my brother's own handwriting, of that 
extraordinary expedition. In several places on the blotched 
sheets he makes a dq>recato]7 note — '' This is not written veiy 
dearly; my temperature is 105." Such perseverance, such per- 
sistence are really superhuman; but perhaps it is also true that 
the human being must eventually pay the price of what the 
superman achieves. 

Theodore Roosevelt returned from that Brazilian tnp a man 
in whom a secret poison still lurked, and although his won- 
derful vitality, his magnificent strength of character, mind, and 
body, seemed at times to restore him to the perfect health of 
fonner days, he was never wholly free from recurrent attacks 
of the terrible jungle fever, which resulted in ill health of various 
kinds, and finally in his death. 

True to his loyal convictions, he was determined to give all 
the aid possible to the candidates on the Progressive tidiet for 
the election of 1914. His wife writes, August, 1914: "Theodore 
seems really better, although I scarcely think he will have voice 
for the three speeches he has planned for the last of the month. 
I asked him if I could say anything from him about the War, 
and he simply threw up his hands in despair." This letter was 
written nine days after the cataclysm of the Great War had 
broken upon the world. From the beginning he said to his family 



Whisperings of War 279 

what he did not fed he could state publicly, owing to the fact 
that he did not wish to embarrass President Wilson. Having 
been President himself , he knew it was possible for one in high 
authority to have information which he could not immediately 
share with all the people, and he hoped this might be the reason 
of President Wilson's failure to make any protest when the 
enemy troops invaded Belgium. 

To his family, however, he spoke frankly and always with 
deq> regret that the President enjoined a neutral attitude in 
the beginning. He felt, from the veiy first, that the Allies were 
fighting our battles; that the British fleet was the protector 
of the United States as much as it was the protector of Great 
Britain; that a protest should have immediately been made 
by the United States when the Gtanans marched through Bel- 
gium. All these views he stated to his family and to his friends, 
but for the first few months after August i, 1914, he felt that, 
as an influential citizen, he might hurt the fulfilment of what- 
ever plan the President might have in view in connection with 
the Allies were he openly to criticise the President's course of 
action. Later in the war he told me how much he rq;retted 
that, from a hi^ sense of duty toward the Executive, he had 
controlled himself during those first few months when we were 
asked by President Wilson to be neutral even in thought. 

In my sister-in-law's letter, quoted above, she speaks of her 
doubt as to whether my brother would be strong enough to make 
the speeches which hehadagreedtomake. ThePhiladelphia North 
American published, about that time, an editorial called ''The 
Amazing Roosevelt/' a few paragraphs of which run as follows: 

''On April 30th, there came out of the seething jungles of 
Brazil to a river port 1000 miles up the Amazon, a man who was 
heralded by cable dispatches as broken in body and perma- 
nently impaired in mind. • • • On his arrival at home, there 
were grave dicta from former critics that never again would 
this man be a force in public life. The solemnity of these pro- 
nouncements scarcely concealed the gratification which they 



28o My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

gave to some who promulgated them. Unbiassed stories of the 
hardships suffered in the tropical forests appeared to be cumula- 
tive evidence to support the belief that Theodore Roosevelt 
was 'done for' as a factor in public life. 

''A sick man had virtually dragged himself through the most 
obdurate jungle still unmapped. . • • It had looked as if the 
entire party might be sacrificed and he had begged his followers 
to go on and leave him to take care of himself. On his return, 
he was warned by an eminent specialist that he must eschew 
speech-making if he hoped to avoid permanent injury to his 
throat Another specialist warned him that impaired vital 
organs necessitated his withdrawing altogether from public 
activities. This was the Roosevelt who went to Pittsburg^ to 
speak to the Progressives of Pennsylvania this week. What was 
ittheProgressivesgathered there to hear? Was it a swan song, 
— ^was it the plea of a broken man, — ^what was the character of 
the gathering ? Was it a congregation of saddened and disheart- 
ened people, come to pay a kindly tribute to a passing leader? 
It was none of these things. The demonstration for Roosevelt 
and Progressive princq>les surpassed anything in the 1912 cam- 
paign, and the Roosevelt who greeted this great demonstration 
was the vigorous, fighting Roosevelt who so long had led the 
people's battles. He was never received with more enthusiasm. 
The New York Times, not a paper in favor of Colonel Roosevelt, 
said: 'The Pennsylvania Progressives gave Colonel Roosevelt 
a welcome tonight which must have reminded him of 1912. The 
demonstration was a remariLable one.' And The World said: 
'The Colonel enjoyed eveiy minute. Malaria was forgotten 
and all physical weakness along with it as he stood at the vortex 
of the night's enthusiasm.' 

"No one can read the speech which Roosevelt made that 
night without being convinced that the dismal forebodings that 
came out of that Amazon port last April, have already been 
discredited, and that the man who in 1912 stood with an as- 
sassin's bullet near his heart, and insisted upon delivering a 



Whisperings of War 281 

message which might be his last, is not to be broken or even 
impaired in 1914 by the hardships of a South American jungle. 
It is but another example of the amaring Roosevelt/' 

That same autumn of 1914 he came to our old home in Her- 
kimer Coimty once more, but this time he was the guest of my 
son Theodore Douglas Robinson, and stayed at his house, which 
adjoins the old home. From there Mrs. Parsons and he and I 
joined the candidate for governor on the Progressive ticket. 
State Senator Fr^erick A. Davenport, and fonner State Senar 
tor Newcomb, for a short speaking tour to uphold the candidacy 
of Senator Davenport. We knew there was veiy little hope of 
success, but my brother had recuperated apparently from the 
Brazilian tdp, and we spent two merry days dashing throu^ 
Herkimer and Otsego counties. In ^ite of anxiety and a deep 
sense of distress about Old World conditions, for a brief mo- 
ment we threw off all care, and in the glorious autumn sunshine, 
followed by cheering crowds, we enjoyed one of the triumphal 
processions which were almost always a sine qua nan wherever 
he appeared. One ^)ecially merry afternoon and evening was 
spent at the home of James Fenimore G)oper. My brother 
was to speak at Cooperstown in the afternoon, and Mr. Cooper 
invited us to dinner, but I told him that the parly must reach 
Qneonta for dinner, so that we could only take afternoon tea 
at his house. I had not confided this refusal to Theodore, simply 
taking it for granted that it woidd be impossible for us to accept 
the G)oper invitation and reach Qneonta in time for his eve- 
ning speech. The Cooper home, full of treasures that had de- 
scended from Mr. Cooper's grandfather, the author of ''The Last 
of the Mohicans," etc., and equally full of channing people, gave 
us so warm a welcome, and we had such an agreeable time there, 
that my brother was veiy loath to leave, but at 6.30 I insisted 
that we must start for Qneonta. We were already in the motors 
when Mr. Cooper, leaning over to say good-by, assured Colonel 
Roosevelt of his regret that he could not stay to dinner. ''Din- 
ner?" said my brotiber. "I didn't know I was asked to dinner." 



282 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

''Yes, you were, of course/' said Mr. Cooper; ''but your sister. 
Mis. Robinson, refused to let you stay for dinner, saying that 
you woidd have to reach Oneonta at 8 o'clock." ''May I ask," 
said my brother in a high falsetto, " what business my sister, Mrs. 
Robinson, had to refuse a dinner invitation for me ? " And, with a 
boimd, he leaped from the automobile, shaking, laughingly, his 
fist at me, and said, "Dinner with the Coopers ! Well, of course, 
I am going to stay to dinner," and returned rapidly to the 
house, followed meekly by his party. The hospitable and re- 
sourceful Coopers, who naturally; after my refusal, had not ex- 
pected seven extra people to dinner, turned in, assisted by Theo- 
dore himself, and proceeded to scramble eggs and broil bacon, 
much to the amusement and delight of the cook, who had never 
had an ex-President in her kitchen before, and of all the merry 
dinner-parties that I have ever attended, that one, forced upon 
the delightful Fenimore Coopers, was about the merriest. 

Senator Davenport had been in poor health at the time, 
and my brother called him entirely "Little Eva," after the 
angel child of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
both because of his rather transparent appearance and his 
high-minded principles (upon which the Colonel dilated in his 
speeches). He called himself "Uncle Tom," and Senator New- 
comb "Simon Legree," and those cognomens and no others 
were used throughout the entire tdp, which proved a veritable 
holiday. 

But neither that trip nor any other trip could have changed 
the fate of the Progressive candidates in 1914, and New York 
State showed at election time, as did various other states in 
the country, that America was not prepared for a third party, 
even though that party stood, more than did any other party, 
for the practical common sense and high idealism of Theodore 
Roosevelt. 

Just before Election day I accompanied him to Princeton, 
where Doctor John Grier Hibben, president of the university, 
received him with distinction, and asked him to speak to the 



Whisperings of War 283 

body of students there not only on political faiths but on '' Pre- 
paredness." Unless I am very much mistaken^ the first speech 
on that subject in the United States during the Great War was 
that very address made in the auditorium of Princeton in No- 
vember, I9i4> by my brother. His yoimg and eager listeners 
among the student body applauded him to the echo. The 
cause of preparedness and true Americanism had no stancher 
upholder at that time, nor in the difficult years to come, than 
President Hibben of Princeton University. Theodore Roosevelt, 
Henry Cabot Lodge, Leonard Wood, John Grier Hibben, Au- 
gustus P. Gardner, and other far-seeing patriots, stood from the 
beginning for the Allies against the Huns, and for '^ Prepared- 
ness'' of a thorough kind. Had their advice been followed, 
Germany would very soon have sensed how formidable an in- 
fluence in the war America could be. I am convinced there 
would have been no sinking of the LusUania, and hundreds of 
thousands of gallant young men would not have k)st their lives 
on Flanders Fields. 

On November 12, 1914, after Election day, my brother writes 
me: '' Darling Corinne: — ^That is a veiy dear letter of yours! 
I shall make no further statement. Did you see my quotation 
from Timothy H, Chapter 4, verses 3 and 4? It covers the 
whole situation. Ever yours, Theodore Roosevelt." 

The verses referred to are as follows: 

(3) For the time wiU come when they wiU not endure sound 
doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves 
teachers, having itching ears; 

(4) And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and 
shall be turned imto fables. 

He was veiy apt to sum up a situation in some pregnant 
verse from the Bible. 

The winter of 1915 was trying to him in certain ways, espe- 
cially on accoimt of the Barnes libel suit. He had made the 
statement that Mr. Barnes had, politically, a bq>artisan atti- 
tude, and indeed more than attitude, and Mr. Barnes dedded 



284 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

to bring a suit for libel against him. In spite of this annos^ance, 
however, he writes me various letters, some merry, and all deal- 
ing with subjects where he or I could be of help to others less 
fortunate. In one case, in connection with a certain French 
pastor, to whom I could not be of assistance in the way in 
which he had hoped, he writes: "I understand perfectly. I felt 
like a swine when I wrote you, but the poor, dear pastor was 
such a pathetic figure that from sheer mushy weakness I yielded, 
and strove to do something for him.'' And later, in connection 
with a penniless poet: ''Can you give me any advice? I wish 
I knew some wealthy creature who was interested in poor strug- 
gling poets and could help them, and also help their poor wives 
and children after their deaths. Lord I how hard life is 1'' That 
time I was able to help him, and raised quite a sum for 
the struggling individual in question, whom I thought truly 
deserved help. 

Just then Mrs. William Astor Chanler arranged a chamung 
play for the benefit of a war charity, a play in which there were 
scenes depicting Washington at Valley Forge. My little grand- 
son took the part of his many times great-grandfather. Captain 
Isaac Roosevelt, and my brother, with sympathetic pleasure, 
came as an honored guest to the performance, and was later 
photographed with the small actors. He writes from Syracuse, 
where he had gone to take the defense for himself in the libel 
suit: "Was littie Captain Isaac Roosevelt one of the bewilder- 
ing number of smaU Revolutionaiy leaders who had their photo- 
graphs taken with me? I have felt a pang that I did not par- 
ticularly seek him out, but the confusion was so great that I 
could not identify any one of the constantiy revolving smaU 
boys and girls behind the scenes; and until we were actually 
in place I had supposed that they were all to have their photo- 
graphs taken with me." In this same letter he says, q)eaking of 
the fact that his wife had been ill when he left New York: ''I 
have been so worried about Edith that this libel suit has both- 
ered me very littie. Of course I was rather tired by my nine 



Whisperings of War 285 

days on the witness stand, but I felt I made my case pretty dear. 
How the suit wiU go I have no idea, but in any event I do not 
feel that my friends have any cause to be ashamed of me." On 
May 24, at the end of the suit, in which he scored a great 
triumph, he writes: '^ Dearest Corinne and Douglas: It was 
fine to get your telegrams and letters. You two were among 
those who I knew would stand by me absolutely, win or lose; 
but I am awfully glad it is a case of wioning and not losmg. Just 
as soon as you get back from Virginia I must see you both and 
tell you everything." He did teU us everything, and many were 
the things that he toldl 

Twice in his life Theodore Roosevelt took part in libel suits. 
In the first case he brought the suit against a newspaper which 
had openly accused him of intoxication. In the second place 
he was the defendant, as I have already mentioned. Nothing 
was ever more unfounded than the strange and persbtent rumor 
that Theodore Roosevelt indulged in intoxicating liquors. It 
has been my great good fortune to have been associated with 
men of great self-control as regards drink, but of idl my intimate 
contemporaries, no one ever drank a^lUtdp^'^i/brother. I do 
not think he ever in his life tasted a coStail, and he hated whis- 
key, and it rarely could be foimd at Sagamore HiH. He occa- 
sionally took a ^ass of sherry or port or champagne, but those, 
even, only occasfonalty; and how the report started that he 
overindulged in drink no one has ever been able to discover; 
but like many another sinister thing it swelled with its own 
volume, and after serious thought he chose an occasion when 
he could make a definite charge, and demanded a trial when 
the newspaper in question printed the heretofore only whispered 
imtruth. I do not believe that so many distinguished men ever 
before travelled to a remote Western town, as travelled to give 
testimony about the sobriety of Theodore Roosevelt. Foreign 
ambassadors, famous generals, scientists, literary men, artists, all 
journeyed in an endless trail to give, with ardent loyalty, their 
personal knowledge of the impeccable habits of my brother. 



286 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

The result was an award of damages which my brother refused 
to take and the most abject apologies on the part of the editor. 
The other suit, the Barnes suit, was entirely dilOTerent, for in that 
transaction he was the man to make the accusation, and his op- 
ponent was a most brilliant and acute individual, and even 
although my brother's followers were confident of the accuracy 
of the statement he had made, for his statements were con- 
sistently accurate, still we felt that some apparent lack of proof, 
even though only apparent, might bring about an unfortimate 
result. Mr. John Bowers, one of the most able of his profes- 
sion, was my brother's lawyer, and he later gave me many an 
amusing description of that extraordinary case. The counsel 
for the plaintiff were always averse to allowing my brother to 
testify, for the effect he produced upon the jury n^as immedi- 
ate and startling. The opposing side would object to nearly 
everything he said, simply because anything he said induced a 
rapid and favorable response from the jury. In one part of 
the testimony Mr. Bowers told me that my brother had re- 
peated a conversation between Mr. Barnes and himself, and 
had gone into accurate detail, which was listened to by the 
jury with intense and sympathetic excitement, whereupon the 
lawyer for the plaintiff objected to Mr. Roosevelt's statement 
as an "irrelevant monologue." Quick as a flash my brother 
turned upon the objector and said that "of course the gentle- 
man in question might caU it a monologue, but as Mr. Barnes 
had had as much to do with the conversation as himself, he, 
personally, would call it a dialogue.** This retort brought down 
not only the house but the jury, and the unfortunate oppos- 
ing lawyer withdrew his objection. That story and many others 
my brother recounted to us with humorous and sarcastic de- 
light, shortly after the end of the trial, aroimd a family tea- 
table one Simday evening at Sagamore Hill. 

In September of that year, 191 5, we suffered the loss of our 
beloved friend Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge. Since the early days 
of 1884, she had shared the joys and sorrows of our lives. Beau- 



Whisperings of War 287 

tiful, brilliant, sympathetic, exquisite in her delicate individual- 
ity, in her intellectual inspiration, in her fine humor and sense 
of values— her beautiful head like a rare cameo, her wonderful 
gray-blue eyes looking out imder dark, level brows, she remains 
one of the pictures most treasured in the memories of the Roose- 
velt family. My brother was always at his best with her, and 
I have rarely heard him talk in a broader and more compre- 
hensive way of politics and literature than in the homelike li- 
brary at 1765 Massachusetts Avenue, the house where Senator 
and Mrs. Lodge were always surrounded by an intimate drde 
of friends. By her tea-table, in the rocking-chair bought espe- 
cially for him, Theodore Roosevelt would sit and rock when he 
snatched a happy half-hour after his ride with the senator in 
those old days when he was the President of the United States. 
Mrs. Lodge had the power of stimulating the conversation of 
others, as well as the gift of leading in conversation herself, and 
the best ''talk" that I have ever heard was around her tea-table ' 
in Washington. Her sudden death was a great bbw to my 
brother as it was to us alL 

All through that year and through the year to come, although 
severely censured for his criticisms of the President's policies, 
my brother worked with arduous determination, shoulder to 
shoidder with General Leonard Wood and Augustus P. Gardner, 
to arouse the American people to the danger of non-prepared- 
ness, and to the shame of allowing the exhausted AUies to bear 
without America's he^ the brunt of the battle. Those men of 
vision realized, fully, that in a world aflame, no nation could 
possibly escape the danger of conflagration. Not only from that 
standpoint did the iq)ostles of prq>aredness press forward, but 
from the love of democracy also. These courageous patmts 
wished to have their country share spontaneously from the .be- 
ginniog the effort for righteousness for which France, England, 
and Itafy were giving the lives of the flower of their youth. 

By pen, and even more by word of mouth, always at the 
expense of his energy, Theodore Roosevelt went up and down 



288 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

the country, preadiiiig the doctrine of brotherhood and prepared- 
ness for sdf-defense. As eaily as Januaiyi 1915, General Wood 
had asked me to have a meeting to interest some of the men of 
New York in his plans for the training-camps, which later 
developed into the ** Plattsbuig idea." Many of the men who 
in later days were patriotically ardent in thdr support of that 
Plattsbuig idea spoke to me with amused indifference at the 
end of that meeting in January, 1915, and asked me why I had 
made such a point of their conung to it ! At the same tune, Au- 
gustus P. Gardner, in the House of Representatives, struggled 
to arouse the country from its lethargy. Gradually, however, 
the force of the truth of the doctrine which was being preached 
by the few percolated through the minds and hearts of many 
of the American people, and at the beginning of the year 1916 
one coidd fed a certain response to a higher ideal. In May, 
1915, after the dastardly sinking of the LusUania, the country 
could have been easily led in the path of duty and high ideals. 
The psychological moment was at hand when over a himdred 
women and children, non-combatants, and over whom flew the 
British flag, were hurled into the sea by the dastardly tactics 
of Germany, — ^but this is a digresaon. In January, 1916, I 
was chosen a delegate by the National Security League (an 
organization started during the first year of the war to uphold 
the policy of 'Preparedness") to its first conference at Wash- 
ington, and there I was asked to read a letter from my brother, 
as he could not be present at the conference. He writes me 
on January 22, 1916: ^'I was very much surprised and much 
pleased when I saw in the papers that you had read my letter 
to the Security League.'' And again, two days later, came one 
of his characteristic little notes (no one ever took such pains 
to do and say loving and lovely things): '^ Darling Pussie," he 
says this time: ''Judge Nortoni and Bob Bacon have been out 
here to Sagamore Hill separately, and both fed that your speech 
was the feature of the Washington meeting. I will tell you all 
that they say next Simday when you come to us. I was really 



Whisperings of War 289 

touched by their enthusiastic admiration of you and the speech. 
My letter was apparently regarded only as the peg on which 
the speech was hung. Ever yours, T. R/' Needless to say, 
my speech was only an insignificant addendum to his letter, but 
he truly believed that his sister's speech was the more important 
of the two things ! 

In February he gladly lent me his name for the New York 
advisory committee of ''The Fatherless Children of France/' 
a society started by two magnificent Englishwomen, Miss Scho- 
fidd and Miss Fell, for which I was privileged to fonn the New 
York City committee. ''Of course use my name," he says. I 
do not remember ever asking him for it that he did not lend 
it to me — that name which counted more than almost any other 
name of his time. 

In March, 1916, he sailed with Mis. Roosevelt for Trinidad, 
and during his absence there began again the rumblings of de- 
sire on the part of the people of the United States to have him 
named as presidential candidate on the Republican ticket in 
the forthcoming convention. A certain faction of the Progres- 
sive party still dung to the hope that it coidd achieve its heart's 
desire and name him on their ticket, but he had come more and 
more to the condusion that the Rq>ublican and the Progressive 
parties must amalgamate in their choice of a nominee, for he 
firmly believed that Mr. Wilson's polides had been of sinister 
influence in the country, and he was convinced that nothing was 
so important as to remove this, from his standpoint, unfortunate 
influence. More and more he believed that our coimtry should 
bear a gallant part in the terrible adventure across the sea; more 
and more he preached the doctrine that we should go to the 
aid of the war-worn countries who sordy needed America's help. 

I cannot refrain from inserting here a letter written by 
Colond Roosevdt to his dear friend and classmate Charles G. 
Washbiun, who had just published his able book called "Theo- 
dore Roosevelt — ^The Logic of His Career." That book had 
spedal interest because, although Mr. Washburn never wavered 



290 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

in his personal, loyal, and devoted attachment to Colonel Roose- 
velt, his political convictions were such that he had not found 
it possible to follow the Colonel into the Progressive party. 
The book in question, having been written during the period 
between 191 2 and 1916, the period when many people felt that 
my brother was politically dead, was published, strange to say, 
just as the pendulum swung back again, when the people real- 
ized the need of strong leaderstup in the crisis of the Great War, 
and Theodore Roosevelt seemed to many to be the man of the 
hour. 

''Dear Charlie:'' writes Colonel Roosevelt, ''We leave on 
the loth of this month [for Trinidad]. I am much amused to 
think that there is a momentary revival of my popularity or 
notoriety or whatever you choose to call it, at the very time your 
book is to appesLT, for when you started to write it, indeed, while 
you were writing it, I was down at the very nadir; and only 
a very devoted friendshq) — others would call it a very blind 
friendship) — ^woidd have made you write it. I, myself, thought 
that it was not wise for you to publish it, that nobody would 
take any interest in me, and that they woidd only laugh at you 
for your loyalty and affection." 

The following day he writes again: "Just after I had written 
you, the book came. I am immensely pleased with it, and I am 
very proud that my children and grandchildren are to have it. 
• • • Of course, old friend, you' have said of me far more than 
I deserve, but I am glad you said it." The book to which he 
refers shows, perhaps, more than any other book written about 
my brother, the accurate realization by the author that my 
brother's attitude in January, 1912, when he took the step which 
directly or indirectly brought about the formation of the Pro- 
gressive party, was in no sense an erratic swerving from the 
path upon which he had always walked, but, on the contrary, 
a direct and logical justification of beliefs — and the actions with 
which he always squared beliefs — ^held in his early manhood 
and retained in his later years. 



Whisperings of War 291 

On March 27, after his return from Trinidad, he writes: 

''Well, here we are, back from our little trip along 'the path 
to Nowhere.' [He refers here to some verses I had just pub- 
lished imder that title.] We did not get entirely out of the path 
to Somewhere — thanks to the 'hunying, struggling, and striv- 
ing' of very kind people who insisted on entertaining us — ^but we 
had, at intervals, a number of hours on the path to Nowhere, 
although, in that latitude, there were no adders' tongues, and 
the lilies were less in evidence than palms, bougainvillea, scarlet 
hibiscus and poinsettia in hedges, and rocks and flowering trees, 
and little green dties of St. Mary's (I wish I had seen Mase- 
field) — ^and the trade wind tossing the fronds of the palms on 
the white beaches. 

"I loved your letter, and read and re-read eveiy word of 
it. I think as highly of 'Ordeal by Battle' as you do; did I show 
you the letter Oliver sent me with a copy of the first edition ? 
He has just sent me a copy of the second edition. I am very 
glad you are taking a rest cure. You sorely needed it, but when 
you leave Nonkanawha, can't you bring Cortissoz and the Cor- 
bins out here for lunch. I am very glad you like my book. My 
soul was in it. [He had just published "Fear God, and Take 
Your Own Part."] . . . Well, I don't see mudi chance of our 
doing what is right in politics. The trouble is that we have 
complacently sagged back for fifty years while Gennany has 
surged forward and has forced her nearest competitors to some 
kind of forward movement in order to avoid death at her hands." 

Shortly afterward, when in answer to his suggestion I wrote 
him that I would bring some of the friends he mentioned to 
luncheon, he writes: "Three cheers — ^I shall expect you with the 
Cortissoz, Corbins, and O'Hara." 

That letter was written on April 2, 1916, and shortly after- 
ward I motored those friends to 03^ter Bay, and we had a pecu- 
liarly delightful luncheon and afternoon, at which I was, as 
usual, struck with the manner in whidi he adapted himself to the 
interest of the individual. Mr. John Myers O'Hara, an Amer- 



292 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

ican poet of classic and lyric quality, was shown a special poem 
in which my brother felt that there was similarity between his 
work and that of the author of the lines in question; Mr. Cor- 
tissoz, whose delicious humor was a special delight to my brother, 
found the Colonel not only sympathetic in those ways, but also 
in the quality of his artistic thought; he adapted himself to each 
in turn, and we all motored away from that full and rich en- 
vironment each more stimulated than before along the line of 
the special achievement to whidi he a^ired. 

On his return from Trinidad, he had been beset by questions 
as to whether he would consent again to be the presidential 
nominee. The Progressive party, after its severe defeat in vari- 
ous States in 1914, still showed a grim desire to be at least a 
strong factor in the nomination for a presidential candidate in 
the coming election, and various combinations of individuals 
were already in process of coalition in the happy thought that 
Theodore Roosevelt might be the combined nominee of both 
Progressive and Rq>ublican forces. A certain number of such 
citizens formed what they called The Roosevelt Non-partisan 
League, and the secretary of that league, Guy Emerson by name, 
wrote, in part, as follows to Colonel Roosevelt: 

''Dear Colonel Roosevelt: — ^The Roosevelt Non-partisan 
League is a movement inaugurated by citizens of all parties 
who believe that Americanism is the great issue before the coun- 
try today, and that you are the strongest available man as leader 
under that issue. You stated the platform in your Chicago 
speech, which, in our opinion, is vital for the safety of the coun- 
try during the four momentous years which lie ahead." 

In answer to the above letter, my brother wrote: 

''Because of your attitude, I earnestly improve your work* 
The safety of this country depends upon our immediate, serious, 
and vigorous efforts to square our words with our deeds, and 
to secure our own national rehabilitation. The slumbering 
patriotism of our people must be waked and translated into 
concrete and efficient action. The awakening must be to a sense 



Whisperings of War 293 

of national and intemational duty and responsibility." After 
going into greater length as to his personal principles and opin- 
ions, Mr. Roosevelt continues: ''Our citizens must act as Amer- 
icans, not as Americans with a prefix and qualifications. • . • 
Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable 
sin. The timid man who cannot fight, and the selfish, short- 
sighted or foolish man who will not take the steps that will en- 
able him to fight, stand on ahnost the same plane. Prq)ared- 
ness deters the foe and maintains right by the show of ready 
might without the use of violence. Peace, like Freedom, is not 
a gift that tarries long in the hands of cowards, or of those too 
feeble or too short-sighted to deserve it, and we ask to be given 
the means to insure that honorable peace which alone is worth 
having." 

In answering from other sources the same suggestion — 
namely, that he should take anew the leadership and be himself 
the nominee against President Wilson — ^he boldly replied that 
he doubted if it would be wise to name him, for if he should be 
named, his followers would have to be in a ''heroic mood." 

On May 31 he announced: "I speak for universal service 
based on imiversal training. Universal traimng and universal 
service represent the only service and training a democracy 
should accept. . . • Performance of intemational duty to 
others means that in international a£fairs, in the commonwealth 
of nations, we shall not only refrain from wronging the weak, 
but, according to our capacity and as opportunity offers, we 
should stand up for the weak when the weak are wronged by 
the strong." 

Every speech by Colonel Roosevelt had again become the 
subject of national discussion, and as the Democratic policy 
began to shape itself, each position taken by the Republican 
party, as well as by the Progressive party, followed the lines laid 
down in some speech made by Colonel Roosevelt. By this time 
he had fuUy come to realize that, if it were possible to defeat 
the policies which, from his standpoint, were lulling the coun- 



294 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

try into ignoble avoidance of its national and international duty, 
such defeat could only be brought about by the amalgamation 
of the Progressive and Rq>ublican parties, a result extremely 
difficult to accomplish. 

On April 14 he said: "The Tribune says of the approach- 
ing convention, 'We are choosing which way the coimtry shall 
go in the era that is now opening, just as our fathers chose the 
nation's path in the days of i860.' This sentence should be in 
the mind of every man who at Chicago next Jime takes part in 
formulating the platform and naming the candidate. The men 
at Chicago should act in the spirit of the men who stood behind 
Abraham Lincoln. . . . There is one great issue on whidi the 
fight is to be made if the highest service is to be rendered the 
American people. That issue is that the American people must 
find its own soul. National honor is a spiritual thing that can- 
not be haggled over in terms of dollars. [He refers to the issue 
of the tarilBF which had been prominently brought forward.] We 
must stand not only for America First but for America first, 
last, and all the time and without any second. . . . We can 
be true to mankind at large only if we are true to ourselves. If 
we are false to ourselves, we shall be false to ever3rthing else* 
We have a lofty ideal to serve and a great mission to accomplish 
for the cause of Freedom and genuine democracy, and of justice 
and fair dealing throughout the world. If we are weak and sloth- 
ful and absorbed in mere money getting or vapid excitement, 
we can neither serve these causes nor any others. We must 
stand for national issues, for national discipline and for prepared- 
ness — ^military, social and industrial — ^in order to keq) the soul 
of this nation. We stand for Peace, but only for the Peace that 
comes as a right to the just man armed, and not for the Peace 
which the coward purchases by abject submission to wrong. 
The Peace of cowardice leads in the end to war after a record 
of shame." 

Even the Democratic newq>aper, the New York Times^ q)oke 
about that time of Colonel Roosevelt's capacity to rouse a true 



Whisperings of War 295 

patriotism. It said: ''The passion of his Americanism, his un- 
erring instinct for the jugular vein, make him, in a good cause, an 
imrivalled compeller of men. He has had his fill of glories, his 
name is blown about the world; — ^by preparing America against 
war, to tmite America in patriotism, there are no nobler laurels." 
And almost coincident with this unexpected ^predation of a 
newspaper frequently the enemy of Colonel Roosevelt came 
a letter from his former attorney-general, William H. Moody, 
written to their mutual friend Mr. Washburn, the author of 
the book whidi I have already mentioned. In the heat of the 
controversy which was once more beginning to rage around the 
figure of Theodore Roosevelt, it was interesting to read the calm 
and quiet words penned by the able man who had served as 
attorney-general in my brother's cabinet, but, alas, laid low by 
the painful illness whidi later proved the cause of his premature 
death. "For five years," writes Mr. Moody, "I was in almost 
daily association with him in the details of work for a common 
puipose and in his relation to all sorts and conditions of men. 
There are some parts of his work as President whidi I think no 
one knew better than I did, and there are results of it which ought 
to recdve thorough study and be brought dearly to light. I 
have here spedaUy in mind, the effect of his acts and preach- 
ments upon economic thought, and the development of the con- 
stitutional theory of our government. If one contrasts the state 
of opinion as to the proper rdation between capital and labor, 
and the proper attitude of government toward both as that 
opinion existed just before the war with Spain, and as it exists 
today, one cannot fail to see that there has been an extraordinary 
change. In this change, I believe he was the one great leader 
in this country. • . • What was needed was a man with a great 
genius for leadership, great courage, great intelligence, and the 
highest puipose. That man came in Theodore Roosevdt. Per- 
haps, many would scout the idea that he had been a guide in 
constitutional interpretation. I remember the state of legal 
thought and the attitude of the Supreme Court in the nineties 



296 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

toward what we called the new internationalism. I be- 
lieve no one appreciates more dearly than I the great 
change that has come to both since then. By the legislation 
which he, Theodore Roosevelt, promoted against great odds, 
there have been drawn from the Supreme Court decisions 
whidi have declared that nationalism which is necessary to 
our future national life." 

This deliberate decision on the part of a man essentially 
legal in mind throws interestrng light upon my brother's actions 
and attitudes, assailed as he was at the time for lack of the very 
devotion to the Constitution for which Mr. Moody praises him. 
About the same time, from Elansas City, on May 30, 1916, my 
brother writes to me: ''I hope you will like the speech I am about 
to make here. I have scrupulously employed the 'we' in de- 
soibing our governmental short-comings ! " 

Unless I am mistaken, it was about that time that my brother 
made a speech in Arkansas which — ^while the quotation which I 
am about to give has Uttle to do with the issue of the moment 
— is so characteristic of his own fearlessness that I cannot pass 
it over. 

The strongest theory which I have evolved from the study 
of the ups and downs of political life consists in the belief that 
of all factors in permanent success (and permanent success 
means a place in history), there is none so important as that 
of moral as well as physical courage. More men have lost 
their heart's desire because at the most crucial moment they 
lacked the courage to barter that veiy desire for an honest 
conviction than from any other cause. Theodore Roosevelt 
beUeved that he could help not only his country but the coun- 
tries of the world were he nominated and elected in 1916, just 
as he firmly believed that should Mr. Wilson be renominated 
and re-elected to that position, America and the countries of 
the world would be worse off rather than better off, and yet, 
no matter before what audience he qx>ke, were it East, West, 
North, or South, he qx>ke with the ardor of conviction, never 



Whisperings of War 297 

for one moment withholding one belief, no matter how unpalat- 
able it might be to the section of the country to which he was 
giving his message, did he feel that that belief should be clearly 
demonstrated to that portion of the people. 

At Little Rock, Ark., the Governor of the State (I was told 
of this incident by a Methodist minister who was present on the 
occasion), during a speech in which he introduced Colonel Roose- 
velt to his stupendous audience, said: ''We have an unwritten 
law in the Southland that when a vile black wretch commits 
the unmentionable crime, we hang him without judge or jury." 
As Theodore Roosevelt rose to make his address, he turned to 
the governor and said: ''Before I make my address to the people, 
Governor, I want to say to you that when any man or set of 
men take the law into their own hands, and inflict summaiy 
punishment on the 'vile black wretch' of whom you speak they 
place themselves upon the same base level as that same 'vile 
black wretch.' " The stunned audience, silent for a moment, 
burst into vodferous applause. But the governor made no 
response to Colonel Roosevelt's inteipellation. 

It was about this same time that in response to a letter from 
Mr. Guy Emerson, Mr. Thomas A. Edison wrote of Colonel 
Roosevelt as follows: "My dear Sir: — ^Answering your question 
as to my views of Colonel Roosevelt for our next President, I 
would say that I believe he is absolutely the only man that 
should be considered at this crucial period. He has more real 
statesmanship, a better grasp of the most important needs of 
this country and greater executive ability to handle the big, 
international problems that will arise at the dose of the war 
than all the other proposed candidates put together. His energy, 
capadty, and vast experience in large a£fairs of state and nation 
for many years, together with his great patriotism, and his in- 
tense Americanism, and his great knowledge in all lines of human 
endeavor, make him decidedly the most striking figure in Amer- 
ican life." 

Mr. Edison voiced the sentiment of hundreds of thousands 



298 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

of his fellow ddzens, and as the time approached for the Re- 
publican Convention of 1916, feelings of all kinds waxed al- 
most as hot as in those thrilling days of 1912. In fact, in many 
ways, there was even a greater excitement in the hearts of the 
more valiant Americans, who believed that the time was already 
ripe to make the world safe for democracy. These more valiant 
Americans also believed that the man most fitted to aid in mak- 
ing the world thus safe was Theodore Roosevelt. On the other 
hand, the stand-pat Rq>ublicans were still smarting from what 
they considered, I think imjustly, his betrayal of them, and they 
were not ready to enroll themselves under his banner. The 
Progressives, on the other hand, were equally opposed to any 
compromise, and when the great convention met in Chicago, 
peace between the contending factions seemed an illusive and 
unattainable ideal, and so it proved. Those were days of tragic 
excitement in the great auditorium, where sat, tied hand and 
foot, what seemed to be a mercenary army, so little did true pa- 
triotism appear to actuate the delegates to that important congre- 
gation of individuals. On the other hand, near by, in a smaller 
hall, the almost fanatic enthusiasm for the much higher ideal 
was also to make itself a party to the defeat of its own object, 
although at that moment of honest and high-minded enthusiasm 
it could hardly be blamed for any attitude bom of that enthu- 
siasm. 

Again the battle raged, and again the personality of Theo- 
dore Roosevelt became the deciding factor. Conferees were 
chosen by both the Rq>ublican Convention and the Progressive 
Convention, but they could not find a common ground upon 
which to agree, and that fateful week in early June ended 
with the nomination of Charles £. Hu^es by the Republican 
Convention, and, against his wish, with the nomination of my 
brother on the Progressive ticket. Perhaps there was never a 
more dramatic moment, a moment of more heartfelt disappoint- 
ment, than when the convention of the Progressive party re- 
ceived the statement brought to it by John McGrath, secretary 



Whisperings of War 299 

of Colond Roosevelt, which ran as follows (I quote from a 
contemporary newspaper in Chicago) : 

" Annoimcement was made here this afternoon at 4:50 o'clock 
that Roosevelt has refused to accept the Progressive nomination 
for President. 

''Colonel Roosevelt's statement was brought to the con- 
vention by John McGrath, his secretaiy. It follows: 

" 'To the Progressive Convention: I am very grateful for 
the honor you confer upon me by nominating me as President. 
I cannot accept it at this time. I do not know the attitude of 
the candidate of the Republican party toward the vital ques- 
tions of the day. Therefore, if you desire an immediate decision, 
I must decline the nomination. But if you prefer it, I suggest 
that my conditional refusal to run be placed in the hands of the 
Progressive National Committee. 

" 'If Mr. Hughes' statements, when he makes them, shall 
satisfy the committee that it is for the interest of the country 
that he be elected, they can act accordingly and treat my re- 
fusal as definitely accepted. If they are not satisfied they can 
so notify the Progressive party, and at the same time, they can 
confer with me and then determine on whatever action we may 
severally deem appropriate to meet the needs of the country.' 

" 'I move,' said James R. Garfield, 'that the letter of Colo- 
nel Roosevelt be received in the spirit in which it is meant, 
and that it be referred to the National Conmiittee, with power 
to act thereon.' 

"The motion was carried, and at 5 p. M. the Progressive 
Convention, the liveliest in the history of politics, came to an 
end with the playing of the national air." 

The closing scenes of the Rq>ublican Convention were as 
cold and as unemotional as was the reverse in the body sitting 
in the other hall, so close at hand. I, myself, went from one 
spot to the other, torn with conflicting emotions. In the Re- 
publican Convention there had been no enthusiasm whatsoever 
for any candidate up to the moment when Senator Fall, of New 



300 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Mexico, put the name of Theodore Roosevelt in nomination. 
Then, and then only, did the thousands of people in that great 
auditorium rise to their feet with one prolonged shout of ap- 
proval. The delegates — and, alas I it is the delegates to a conven- 
tion, not the people, who apparently choose the men who are 
to govern the people — ^were cold and unresponsive no matter 
what name was put before them, and, were it possible, they were 
even colder, even more unresponsive, when Theodore Roose- 
velt's name was mentioned than they were at any other time; 
but the masses — they were neither cold nor unresponsive ! How 
they cheered as that beloved name was heard for the first time 
in that Republican Convention! Over and over again the chair- 
man tried to bring the convention to order. No blaring bands, 
no stimulated marchings, were the cause of the great ovation* 
It was actually and vividly the cry of those who wanted a leader 
and wanted their leader that was heard in that great hall, but 
there was no echo in the hearts of those who held the balance 
of power in their hands. That evening there was printed in one 
of the Chicago newspapers so exquisite a rhapsody, so loving 
a swan song, that I can but rq>roduce it. 

AHI TEDDY DEAR 

Ah, Teddy dear, and did ye hear the news that's gmn' round? 

They say you're gone from off the stage, that strange cold men, 
whom we respect but love not, must be our meat for all the campaign 
days to come. 

Gray is the prospect; dull is the outlook. 

We felt all the while that over in the Auditorium and the Coliseum 
they were breaking to us the news of a death in the family. They 
were merciful; they held it back; they did not let us have the shock 
of it all at once. They meant kindly. 

But now that the news has come the kindness of friends can help 
but little. Our hearts are broke I We need you and we want you 
every minute. 

Ah the fun of 3rou and the glory of 3rou ! 

Where lies the American whose passion or whose imagination 
you have not set a-tingling? Who else has meant the savor of life 



Whisperings of War 301 

for us? Who but you has taken us and set our feet upon the high 
places? 

Before you came, all in politics was set and regular. Those who 
were ordained to rule over us did so with that gravity with which 
stupid grown-ups so oft repress the child. No one ever talked to us 
as you did. They called us "voters" or "constituents" or such big 
names as these. They never took us by the hand and laughed and 
played with us as you did. 

They never understood us. They could preach Sunday school 
and arithmetic. But the good Lord never gave it to them to speak 
to the heart. 

And then you came I 

Dandng down the road you came with life and love and courage 
and fun stickin' out all over you. How we loved you at the first sight 1 
And how you loved us 1 

Friends we were, tho' you were in the White House and we were 
making mud pies. Friends we were together with nothing to come 
between us. 

Your love would let no harm come near us and we knew it. With 
your courage you fought for us. With your life and your fun you 
took us out of the drab grind. 

You told us of the birds in the air and of the fishes in the sea. The 
great tales of the old heroes, the sagas of the past, you spread before 
our 'stonished eyes. You gave us new words — delightful words — 
to play with; and jokes — delightful jokes — ^to make us laugh. 

How we wanted you back when you went away 1 But they stole 
our right from us and they wouldn't let you come back. So we fol- 
lowed you. Four million of us, in a fight the like of which we never 
knew. Joy and religion were in it in equal measure. Hymns and 
cleanness and color and battle all were jumbled in it. The good of 
it is set forever into the life of the nation. 

But the schoolmaster beat you, and the Great War came to crowd 
you from our thoughts. We thought only of ourselves because you 
were no longer there to make us think of our country. At last we 
turned to you — ^when it was too late. 

So now we are not to have you. We must go stumbling on alone, 
hoping that the man they've given us may show something of that 
fire and strength upon which you taught us to rely. 

It's our fault, not theirs. It's our fault, not yours. You warned 
us that we must be ready to go thru to the end. We weren't. Fear 
had come upon us, fear of ourselves. We were split up. We eyed 



302 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

each other with distrust. The spirit of your old sagas had gone from 
us. 

Now we must face it alone, unless you help us. Do not forsake 
us to sulk in your tent. Make the sacrifice they demand, not for their 
sake but for ours. Help them win with the cold, good man they've 
chosen. Help that man to hold his courage and fight worthily for 
the things which you have taught us — ^tho the real right to fight for 
them was yours, not his. Don't let our councils be divided. Don't 
let hotheaded friends force their personal claims upon you. 

But whatever you do or whatever you don't do, be sure of one 
thing — ^we shall never hold it against you. For all that is gone, you 
can do no wrong in our sight. The memory of you shall never fade 
from our hearts. 

Ah, Teddy dear — ^we love you now and always.* 

* From the Chicago Evening Post, June, 1916. The article was written by Julian 
Mason, the gifted son of one who had been a hospitable host of Theodore Roose- 
velt when, as a young man, he wrote ''The Winning of the West" 



XVI 

"DO IT NOW" 

Sad America 

Dreamed in the distance as a charmed thing 

Till Roosevelt, like Roland, blew his horn. 

— John Jay Chapman. 

One who rang true when traitor thoughts were rife, 
One who led straight through all the years of strife. 

— ^From Horace Mann School Record. 

I WENT to Sagamore Hill the very moment that I returned 
from Chicago after that ezdting convention. In fact, I 
took the first train possible to OysXxx Bay. My heart was 
aflame, for it seemed to me then, as it has seemed to me fre- 
quently in sudi contests (nor does this refer solely to contests 
in which my brother took part), that the will of the people had 
been frustrated. 

My brother was seated in the library when I arrived at Saga- 
more Hill, and when I burst out, ''Theodore — the people wanted 
you. It seems terrible to me that they could not have you,'' 
he answered, with a smQe that had a subtle meaning in it: ''Do 
not say that; if they had wanted me hard enough, they could 
have had me." By whidi he meant that after all, if enough 
citizens in our great country would take seriously the duties 
of citizenship, the delegates to our conventions would have to 
do their will. From that moment, putting himself entirely aside, 
his whole thought, his whole effort were given to the achieve- 
ment of what he considered the vital need for his country; 
namely, the election of the Republican candidate. Waiting 
until Mr. Hughes had definitely stated his policy. Colonel Roose- 
velt, upon that statement, immediately sent to the Progressive 

303 



304 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Convention, which met within a few weeks, a letter stating his 
position as follows: 

'* Gentlemen: In accordance with the message I sent to the 
National Progressive Convention as soon as I had received the 
notification that it had nominated me for President, I now* com- 
municate to you my reasons for declining the honor which I so 
deq)ly appreciate. . . • Before speaking of anything else, I 
wish to express my heartiest and most unstinted admiration 
for the character and services of the men and women who made 
up the National Progressive Convention in 1916. . . . They 
rq>resent the spirit which moved Abraham Lincoln and.his polit- 
ical associates during the decade preceding the close of the Civil 
War. The platform put forth in 191 2 was much the most im- 
portant public document promulgated in this coimtry since 
the death of Abraham Lincoln. It represented the first effort, 
on a large scale, to translate abstract formulas of economic and 
social justice into concrete American nationalism. • . • 

'^Events have shown us that the Progressive party in 191 2 
offered the only alternative to the triumph of the Democratic 
party. • « • The results of the terrible world war of the past 
two years have now made it evident to all who are willing to 
see, that in this country there must be spiritual and industrial 
preparedness, along the lines of efficient and loyal service to 
the nation, and of practical application of the precept that 'each 
man must be his brother's keq)er.' Furthermore, it is no less 
evident that this preparedness for the days of peace fonns the 
only sound basis for that indispensable military preparedness 
based on militaiy tmiversal training, and which finds expression 
in universal obUgatoiy service in time of war. Such imiversal 
obligatory training and service' are necessary complements of 
universal suffrage and represent the realization of the true Amer- 
ican, the democratic ideal in both peace and war. 

''Sooner or later, the national princq)les championed by 
the Progressives of 191 2 must, in their general effect, be em- 
bodied in the structure of our national existence. With all my 



"Do It Now" 305 

heart, I shall continue to work for these great ideals, shoulder 
to shoulder with the men and women, who, in 191 2, championed 
them. . . . The method however by which we are to show our 
loyalty must be determined in each case by the actual event. 
Our loyalty is to the fact, to the principle, to the ideal, and not 
merely to the name, and least of all, to the party name. The 
Progressive movement has been given an incalculable impetus 
by what the Progressive party has done. Our strongest party 
organizations have accq>ted and enacted into law, or embodied 
in their party platforms many of our most important principles. 
Yet it has become entirely evident that the people under exist- 
ing conditions are not prepared to accq>t a new party. . . . 
Under such circumstances, our duty is to do the best we can 
and not to sulk because our leadership is rejected. — It is un- 
patriotic to refuse to do the best possible, merely because the 
people have not put us in a position to do what we regard as 
the veiy best. ... In my judgment, the nomination of Mr* 
Hughes meets the conditions set forth in the statement of the 
Progressive National Committee, issued last January and in 
my own statements. Under existing conditions, the nomina- 
tion of a third ticket would, in my judgment, be merely a move 
in the interest of the election of Mr. Wilson. I regard Mr. 
Hughes as a man whose public record is a guarantee that he 
will not merely stand for a program of clean-cut, straight prin- 
ciples before election but will resolutely and in good faith put 
them through if elected. It would be a grave detriment to the 
country to re-elect Mr. Wilson. I shall, therefore, strongly sup- 
port Mr. Hughes. Such beiog the case, it is unnecessary to say 
that I cannot accept the nomination on a third ticket. I do 
not believe that there should be a third ticket. I believe that 
when my feUow Progressives actually consider the question, 
they will, for the most part, take this position. 

''They and I have but one puipose, — the purpose to serve 
our common country. It is my deep conviction that at this 
moment we can serve it only by supporting Mr. Hughes." 



3o6 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

From that moment, "squaring," as he alwajrs did, "convic- 
tion with action," Theodore Roosevelt set his strong shoulder 
to the political wheel which he hoped with all his heart would 
put Charles £. Hughes into the White House. 

In my brother's own "Autobiography" he says: "I have al- 
ways had a horror of words that are not translated into deeds, 
of q)eech that does not result in action; in other words, I believe 
in realizable ideals and in realizing them; in preaching what 
would be practicable and then practising it." 

He put the same idea in somewhat different words in a speech 
in that very campaign of 1916: "Of course, the vital thing 
for the nation to remember is that while dreaming and talking 
both have their uses, these uses must chiefly exist in seeing the 
dream realized and the talking turned into action. . • . Ideals 
that are so lofty as always to be unrealizable have a place, — 
sometimes an exceedingly important place in the history of man- 
kind — if the attempt, at least partially to realize them is made; 
but, in the long run, what most helps forward the common run 
of himianity in this work-a-day world, is the possession of realiz- 
able ideals and the sincere attempt to realize them." 

Never did my brother more earnestly fulfil the convictions 
expressed in the above sentence than in his campaign for the 
election of Mr. Hughes. Never did he give himself more self- 
lessly, and with more tireless zeal, than when he tried to put 
one so lately a rival for the presidental nomination into the White 
House, because of his strong belief that to do so would be for 
the good of his bdoyed country. 

On June 23, just before the meeting of the Progressive Con- 
vention, he writes to me: "I should like to show you my letter 
to the National Committee which will appear on Monday after- 
noon. I will then, I trust, finish my active ooxmectians with 
Politics." And again, in another letter on July 21, he says: 
"For SIX years I have been, I believe, emphatically right, em- 
phatically the servant of the best interests of the American 
people; but just as emphatically, — the American people have 



"Do It Now'' 307 

steadfly grown to think less and less of me, and more definitely 
detennined not to use me in any public position, and it is their 
affair after all. Your Teddy [my son at the time was running 
for the nomination for New York State Senator] may expe- 
rience the same fate and may find that through no fault of his, — 
ia my case the fault may have been mine, — his talents may be 
passed by." 

It is interesting to note that although so frequently a justi- 
fied prophet in national affairs, my brother's prophecies con- 
cerning himself rarely came true. The above prophecy was 
no ezcq>tian to this rule, for during the years to come, the Re- 
publican party was to turn once more to Theodore Roosevelt 
as its greatest leader, and to pledge its support to him both in- 
ferentially and actually in their great effort to make him the 
nominee for governor of New York State. In the campaign of 
1918 the leaders of theRq>ubHcan party turned to him as almost 
one man, feeling as they did that his election again to that posi- 
tion would positive^ secure him the election to the presidency 
in 1920. 

Perhi^ the hardest thing for hhn to bear connected with 
the political situation in 1916 was the keen disappointment of 
those Progressives for whom he had such devoted affection 
when he refused to run on the Progressive ticket as the candi- 
date for President. He felt that in the hearts of many there 
was, in spite of their personal devotion to him, a sense of dis- 
illusion, and he tried with earnest effort to make them see the 
point of view which he was convinced was the right point of 
view, which made him support the candidate of the Republican 
party. 

A Mrs. Nicholson, of Oregon, for whom he had a smcere re- 
gard, having written to him on the subject, he answers on July 
18, I9r6: 

"My dear Mrs. Nicholson: . • • You say you do not un- 
derstand 'Why we men make such a fetich of parties.' I can- 
not understand how you include me with the men who do so. 



3o8 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Four years ago I declined to make a fetich of the Rq)ublicaii 
party, when to do so meant dishonor to the nation, and this 
year I declined to make a fetich of the Progressive party when 
to do so meant dishonor to honor. I agree with you that issues 
and men are the thingsthat count. A party is good only as 
a means to an end. Nevertheless, we have to face the fact that 
has been made strikingly evident during the past four years that 
with ninety per cent of our country-men the party name of it- 
self has a certain f etichistic power, and we would be very foolish 
if we did not take this into account in endeavoring to woric for 
good results. Moreover, it is unfortunately true that the dead 
hand of a party sometimes paralyzes its living members. The 
ancestral principles of the Democratic party are so bad it seems 
to be entirely impossible for it to be useful to the countiy ex- 
cept in spasms. 

''I bdieve Mr. Hughes to be honest and to have the good 
of his countiy at heart." 

He was not able to visit us in our countiy home on the Mo* 
hawk Hills, as we had hoped he might possibly do, during that 
summer, but on October 5 he writes to me: "I fear I shall be 
West on the 25th, otherwise I should jump at the chance to lunch 
with you and Fanny at the Colony Club. Can I accept for the 
first subsequent day when I find that you and she are available? 
I am now being worked to the limit by the Hughes people who 
are the very people who four months ago were explainiog that 
I had 'no strength.' • • • I most earnestly desire to win; I, 
above all things, do not wish to sulk, and therefore, from now 
on my time is to be at the disposal of the National Committee. 
Of course, Teddy's nomination meant far more to me personally 
than an3rthing else in this campaign. I look forward eagerly 
to seeing you. Do look at my Metropolitan Magazine article 
which is just out. I think you will like the literary stylel" The 
^'literaiy style" was combined with a certain amount of plain 
talk in this particular instance I 

On October 12 Colonel Roosevelt, taking the exploits of 



"Do It Now" 309 

the Gennan submarine U-boat 53 off the shores of America 
as a text, launched an urgent protest. Colonel Roosevelt de- 
clared that the conduct of the war had led to a " complete break- 
down of the code of international rights." The man who as 
long ago as in his inauguration speech in March, 1905, inveighed 
against the "peace of the coward/' was stirred to red-blooded 
indignation at the Democratic slogan of that campaign of 1916, 
which laid all the stress on "He kept us out of war/' a sentence 
which Colonel Roosevelt described as "utterly misleading." 

He said: 

"Now that the war has been carried to our very shores, there 
is not an American who does not realize the awful tragedy of 
our indifference and our inaction. Nine-tenths of wisdom is 
being wise in time. By taking the right step at the right time, 
America's influence and leadership might have been made a 
stabilizing force. 

"In actual reality, war has been creeping nearer and nearer 
until it stares at us from just beyond our three-mile limit, and 
we face it without poUcy, plan, purpose, or preparation. No 
sane man can to-day be so blind lis to believe President Wilson's 
original statement that the war was no concern of ours. Every 
thinking man must realize the utter futility of a statesmanship 
without plan or policy until such facts as these now stare us in 
the face." 

Such were the virile statements used many times during the 
following campaign. One of the most interesting human docu- 
ments connected with Theodore Roosevelt during this period was 
written by a young reporter, Edwin N. Lewis, in private letters 
to his own family, from the special train upon which Theodore 
Roosevelt travelled for one of the most active ten days of his 
active life, during which he urged the American people to ac- 
cept the Republican candidate. With Mr. Lewis's permission, 
I am quoting from these interesting letters, written by the kind 
of young American for whom my brother had the wannest and 
most friendly feeling, the kind of young American whose family 



3IO My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

life had been such that he wished to share with his family 
whatever was of interest in his life. 

The first letter, dated October 17, 1916, begins: 
"Just getting into Rochester — 7 p. m. — ^Dear Ma: — The 
big tour is on. I was presented to Colonel Roosevelt by his secre- 
tary before the train pulled out. Since there are only three corre- 
qx>ndents in the party, he insists that we eat in his private car 
with him. The trip is going to be a Uttle family party with the 
Colonel a sort of jovial master of ceremonies. He permits me, 
a stranger, to take part in the conversation with the group. In 
fact, I fed, now, after my experiences at luncheon, that I have 
known him a long while. He is just as remarkable, energetic, 
mentally alert and forcible as his chroniclers picture him. I 
could entertain you and pa for an evening with the stories he 
told this noon, and dinner is coming in a half hour ! Wonderful 
meals too, — ^with the New York Central chefs straining every 
effort to give Theodore Roosevelt something fine to eat. Cronin 
of The Sun and Yoder of the United Press are the only other 
newspaper men along. . . , Tomorrow we face a busy day. 
From Cincinnati, we turn down through a mountain section 
of Kentucky which has never seen a President, an ex-President 
or a Presidential candidate. Mountaineers will drive from miles 
around to see the man they have worshipped for years. The 
Colonel makes thirteen stops between Falmouth and Louis- 
ville. I realize how you are thinking of me on this trip. It helps 
me to make good." 

Leaving Louisville, Ky., October 18, 11 p. m.: 
"This has been a long day with hundreds of miles travelled 
by our special train through the valleys of Kentucky in a steady 
run. I wrote about 2000 words but do not imagine that all of 
it will get in the first edition which you will see in New Eng- 
land. Tonight, ''T. R." pulled one of his familiar stunts with 
his changing the whole introduction to his speech at one-half 
hour's notice. He spoke for half an hoiu: on the Adamson 
law and what he would have done to prevent the threatened 



"Do It Now" 311 

railroad strikes. I had to shoot in 500 words additional just 
as we pulled out. It was written in long hand while the Colonel 
delivered the tail end of his talk. Louisville went wild over him. 
As we climbed down in the mud and rain, red fire burned, rockets 
glared in the mist, and the factoiy whistles screeched their wel- 
come. As the New York correspondents travelling with the 
Colonel, we are members of his personal body-guard. You can 
imagine how seriously we take the job, when you remember 
that Mr. Roosevelt was shot and severely wounded when speak- 
ing at Milwaukee a few years ago; a man of such intense affec- 
tions and such stirring convictions always has venomous enemies. 
For this reason, when we take the Colonel through a crowd as 
we did tonight, we completely surround him and use our elbows 
and fists if need be to protect him. If any harm should come 
to him, we would all be crushed. Tonight, however, he was 
only liable to be hurt by the overwhelming love of Louisville 
citizens. . . . Our relations with him could not be more cordial 
and democratic. This noon Colonel Roosevelt was terribly 
excited because Cronin and I did not get luncheon with him 
owing to the prevalence of Kentucky politicians who swaimed 
on the train Uke rats caught in a flood. He swore that he would 
eat nothing tonight until we had been fed. Tonight at 7 p. ic. 
the porter came into my compartment and announced that Mr. 
Roosevelt was waiting dinner for Mr. Lewis and Mr. Cronin. 
He still apobgized although we protested that the chef had filled 
our most prominent cavity successfully with sandwiches and 
coffee at 3 p. m. This gives you just one Httle glimpse of this 
remarkable man. I could write all night along this line. Mind 
you, he is taking all these precautions not for old friends but 
for two newspaper men whom he has never seen before and whose 
articles he has never read. 

''Tonight as he left the hall, I jumped around to his right 
side, grabbed him by the arm and offered to act as a bumper 
against his admirers who fought like bears to shake his hand. 
He still remains the great idol of the American people. He 



312 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

smiled at me, drew his arm through mine and we swayed, pushed, 
and shoved our way ouL 

''The Colonel is a little older than he used to be. I think 
he will be fifty-eight the day we return to New York. At times, 
in the thick of the ezdtement, an expression of fatigue flashes 
across his features. There is a touch of sadness too, I believe, 
in his face, as he looks out over these crowds of people who have 
come for miles just to see him. He is not a candidate for Presi- 
dent, thanks to the Chicago Convention, — but in spite of all 
these things which would discourage an ordinary man, he is 
travelling four thousand miles to win the election. ... If the 
Colonel likes a person, he loves them with gigantic affection. 
His favorite character in literature is Great Heart from 'Pil- 
grim's Progress.' 

"We fought our way into the hall tonight after passing 
through miles of streets lined with black and white people, stand* 
ing patiently in the rain just to see the Colonel go by. We had 
a difficult time getting him out by the rear entrance for the larger 
crowd which could not get inside insisted on a brief speech from 
a bandstand outside. Then, we hustled back through the rain 
to the railroad station, climbed on the train and now we are 
approaching the Indiana border en route to Arizona through 
Missouri and Kansas. We are to take our meals with the Colonel 
three times a day. He promises that this rule will be lived up 
to. He relies on us to read the daily new^apers, giving him 
material. He never reads the pi^rs as near as I can make out. 
We look forward to these next days with great pleasure. We 
are to tour the plains and run almost to the rim of the Grand 
Canyon. The Colonel expects to present us to some of the old 
horse thieves and other respectable men with whom he asso- 
ciated in his cow-punching days ! " 

October 21, 1916, near Phoenix: 

"The trip has been a wonderful experience for me in every 
way. Think of chatting with the Colonel three times a day at 
m^,—- Mr. Roosevelt personally explaining the significance 



"Do It Now" 313 

of every adobe, cactus^ pinyon tree, or prairie dogi When we 
go by a piece of desert, soorching in the white heat of sun-baked 
alcaH, T. R. recalls an experience thirty years ago, when he lost 
some cattle that had sunk in quicksand in a dry river diannd. 
He has taken us into his absolute confidence* He tells us stories 
and gives us opinions which if put on the tel^r^di would con- 
vulse the country* We are all convinced that not only is he the 
greatest American citizen, but also the greatest American hu- 
morkt. His sense of humor is as marvelous as his physical and 
mental energy. To show you how thoughtful the Colonel is, 
• • . listen to this: — ^two of his friends climbed aboard at Pres- 
cott early this morning when I was shaving. That made two 
extra for breakfast, so Cronin and I insisted upon waiting for 
a second table. As we munched our toast and looked out at 
the giant cacti swiftly flowing by our window, who should come 
back to the table but T. R. 'Are you boys getting enough ta 
eat?' he asked, sitting down. 'I am so sorry that this incon- 
venience occurred. If my visitors had not been old friends who 
had not breakfasted, I should never have permitted it.' How 
can a fellow he^ admiring a fellow Uke that, especially when he 
is an ez-President and one of the most famous characters in the 
world today?** 

October 24, near Albuquerque: 

". • .It was nearly 100 sitdng in the afternoon sun in front 
of the speaking stand today. My cloth touring hat was too hot 
for the occasion, but without it I ima^e I would have keeled 
over from prostration or gradually melted away under the press- 
stand. When the Colonel got through, his face was dripjung. 
He delivered a corking talk. There was no heckling because 
he had been tipped off to answer at the beginning, the question 
as to what he would have done in Mexico had he been Presi- 
dent. After he got into his proper speech, and he read every 
word of it, there were no interruptions except cheers of approval. 
My confidential opinion is, however, that he realizes that while 
these western crowds are for him personally, and cheer when- 



314 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

ever he shows his familiar face, they do not understand, — they 
are not in down-right serious accord with, the doctrine he 
preaches. The Republicans are up against a hopeless situa- 
tion. . . . The Roosevelt plan for compulsoiy militaiy service, 
and preparedness are not practical tkis year because they have 
not wide-spread public support. The crowds come to hear 
RooseveU. • • . Tlie crowds in this countiy are too busy making 
money and planning how to make that money make some more, 
to realize the deep-rooted appeal of Theodore Roosevelt to their 
Americanism. Perhi^, through this hasty review of my im- 
pressions in Arizona, you dear folks at home can enter into this 
opportunity with me. I wiU have an interesting yam to spin 
when I return to vote." 

October 25, leaving Denver for Chicago: 

"We are swinging down from the lofty Denver plateau sur- 
rounded with white-topped mountain peaks, through the sugar- 
beet and cattle farms to Nebraska. We shall wake up in Chi- 
cago tomorrow morning on the last leg of our tour. Colonel 
Roosevelt makes two or three speeches in Chicago and then 
pulls out for New York. Everything was rush — ^rush — ^rush in 
Denver. • . . We came by Colorado Springs and Pike's Peak 
at night but were all up, dressed and shaved when the enthu- 
siastic Denverites descended on the Colonel with bands, bombs, 
bandannas, and general noise. Here was an oki-fashioHed, wild 
demonstration for the ez-PresidenL He had not been in Denver 
for nearly six years. At one big meeting of 8000 women 
he showed them the fallacy of Mr. Wilson's argument, 'I have 
kept you out of war.' He told them why he was for suffrage. 
He had them with him from the start. All of this stuff was ex- 
temporaneous and I had to write 1000 words on it. The night 
meeting was a near-riot. We had a stiff fight to get the Colonel 
out of the auditorium which is one of the largest halls in the 
country. They have an excellent arrangement for getting the 
speakers in — ^wide doors open like a circus and the automobile 
with the Colonel and ourselves was driven close to the speaker's 



•'Do It Now" 315 

platfonn. Such a bedlam of noise I never heard. On the plat- 
form were the women speakers from the women's special train. 
When they tried to speak^ however, the crowd hooted them down 
with cries of 'We want Teddy — Give us Teddy and Sit down/ 
etc. Then as soon as he began to speaky the Wilson hecklers 
started shouting, 'Hurrah for Wilson' — it was all very ezdting. 
• . . 'Let me shake hands with the greatest President since 
Lincoln/ one old chap bawled, while I kept my fist under his 
chin as we formed a ring around the Colonel, and half-shoved 
and half«carried him to his automobile. The Colonel reached 
his hand around back of his neck and grasped the old man's 
finger-tq>s, whereupon he subsided and fell back to tell his chil- 
dren that this had been the greatest moment in his life. 

"There is no antagonism to the Colonel out here. Even 
the Wilson supporters love Roosevelt. We have to protect him 
against his friends, however. . . . There is a chap on the train 
now, an old friend of the Colonel who has been collecting pic- 
tures along the Mexican border. Some of the atrocities, partic- 
ularly the burning of bodies and the execution of soldiers are 
the most gruesome sights I have ever seen. The Colonel men- 
tions them when he ridicules the cry that 'Wilson has kept peace 
in Mexico.' He told me today that some day next week he will 
entertain the four of us fellows at Oyster Bay at luncheon in 
his home. He wants to show us the trophies room, filled with 
relics from his African explorations and his early western life. 
That will be a compliment to us as newspaper men on this trip." 

Friday, October 27, Pullman private car leaving Buffalo. 

''We have just turned our watdies ahead an hour» making 
it 10:15, <^d signifying that we are back in the home zone of 
eastern time. The trq> is almost over. The rush and hustle 
of the trq>, and the speed with which we have had to write and 
file our stories, make it seem a moving picture hodge-podge, 
now that it is over. Take yesterday, for instance,— we pulled 
into Chicago at 2 p. ic and were greeted by one of the wildest 
street demonstrations I have ever seen. The Colonel never 



3i6 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

sat down in his seat fnun the time he left the station until we 
arrived at the Congress Hotel. He was up waving his wide- 
brimmed black hat and bowing to the cheering mob. Every 
minute there was a flash, 'some miscreant photographer/ as 
T. R. calls them, had taken a bang at the Colonel. We had 
less than an hour to check our baggage in our rooms, wash up, 
arrange with the Western Union for filing stories, and get ready 
to accompany the Colonel to the Auditorium Theatre across 
the street. 

'' Thanks to the excellent police arrangements, we were able 
to walk unmolested through a human line of admirers who had 
been pushed into place by the mounted police. At 8 P. m. we 
called to interview the Colonel just before he left for the stock- 
yards. After the Women's meeting Cronin and I had to run 
for the Western Union to get a start on our story. We taxi- 
cabbed back to the Congress Hotel, omitted dinner, and joined 
the Roosevelt auto procession to the stock-yards pavilion which 
is six miles out of Chicago. How those cars did shoot throu^ 
the wide Chicago streets, preceded by a motor squad poUce 
patrol with the mufflers on the machines wide open. It seemed 
more like going to a fire than riding to a political meeting. 

'^In the m61£e of getting the Colonel into the hall, I got sepa- 
rated from the party and found myself confronted with six 
wooden-headed Chicago cops who refused to recognize the of- 
ficial ticket of admission, distributed to members of the Roose- 
velt party. I got by one of them by telling him that I had been 
all the way to Arizona with the Colonel. 'Well, I'll be damned' 
he ejaculated. 'If you've been in Arizona, there is no reason in 
h — why you can't get in here.' After I got inside, however, 
there were more difficulties. The cops and ushers refused to 
let me up on the platform with the Colonel and the other corre- 
spondents. While I was fighting, pushing, and kicking around 
in the crowd, I heard someone shout down from above, 'We 
want Mr. Lewis up here right away. Make way for Mr. Lewis.' 
I looked up and saw that James R. Garfield, son of President 



"Do It Now" 317 

Garfiddi himself fonner Secretary of the Interior^ had come to 
my rescue. Mn Garfield had been traveUing with us for two 
days, and with his assistance the rest was easy. I was ahnost 
carried reverently to the platform and placed on a perfectly 
good chair where I could see everything. 

''By the way, — ^Mr. Garfieldi next to the Colond, is the most 
Ukeabtei lovable man I met on this trip. He has a face that 
you like to watch sQently, and contemplate^ because you know 
how fine and corking he must be. I never heard such a long 
demonstration as the one which greeted the Colonel as he stepped 
out before x8,ooo men and women, each of whom seemed to 
have a small flag. It began at three minutes before eight and 
it stopped at thirty-two minutes past eight In that long in- 
terim you could hear nothing but one continuous roar of cheer- 
ing shouts and stamping feet. There was nothing articulate, 
no special cries distinguishable from others, just one blast as 
though some Titan engineer had tied down the heavy chain 
which released the whistle of 100,000 voice power. All efforts 
to stop it were futile. There was nothing to do but to let it run 
down. The band played 'Gary Owen' and the 'Star Spangled 
Banner' and other selections, — ^T. R. beating time with a large 
replica of a 'Big Stick' which had been handed to him. Mean- 
while, in this bedlam, Cronin and I were writing new 'leads' to 
our story on pads in our laps. A Western Union man was sneak- 
ing up to the platform every ten minutes to get copy which was 
placed on wires on the pavilion. By writing this way, we got 
the story into New York before eleven o'clock, that is, when 
the meeting was over, by ten o'clock in Chicago; then there 
was the rapid shooting ride back to the hotel, a little grub and 
bath, and to bed. I was tired. 

"We left Chicago at 6.25 a. ic., the Colonel's car being 
hitdied behind a regular train on the New York Central. The 
Colonel is fifty-eight years old today, as you will know, doubt- 
less, before this letter reaches New Britain. I discovered the 
fact in reading his autobiography. He has been so fine to all 



31 8 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 



of us; he has gone out of his way to make sure that we were 
treated like members of his own family; he has entertained us, 
as correspondents never were entertained; because what can 
excel the most interesting American^ if not the greatest, teUing 
anecdotes by the dozen of one of the most interesting, democratic, 
dynamic, forcible careers in American History? A thought that 
we ought to give him something to remember us by sprang 
simultaneously into the minds of Yoder and myself. . • • Our 
suggestions included a fountain-pen, pocket knife, or silver pen- 
cil — something that he could use. We elected Yoder to scout 
through the Colonel's pocket. He went out on the observa- 
tion platform and casually asked the Colonel if he could borrow 
his knife. 'Yes — ^Yoder,' T. R. said, digging into his pocket, 'but 
I am ashamed of it. The blades are rusty, the handle is cracked. 
By George, I must get a new one.' We decided after hearing 
Yoder's report, that a knife was the thing. A handsome, little, 
flat, gold knife was picked out and the presentation came at 
luncheon today. Odell, in his solemn way, said that I had found 
out that he was bom on October 27th. 'Now, Colonel, you have 
been telling us of many desperate characters you met in the 
Southwest. • . . We decided, therefore, that you should have 
a weapon. We have taken counsel and have determined to give 
you a little reminder of our pleasure on this trip. . . •' The 
Colonel took the little box, pulled forth the knife, and smiling 
a more than Roosevelt smile, 'By George, isn't that fine!' he 
ezdaimed. 'I have never had a good pocket knife in all my life, 
and I was going to buy one tomorrow. I shall always cherish 
this gift, — ^I shall always carry it with me,' whereupon he at- 
tached it to the chain with his Phi Beta Kappa key and his little 
pencil; — 'and I 'want to say that I have enjoyed immensely 
having you with me, and the tr^ has been a pleasure to me 
mainly because you young men have been such good company. 
I am too old at the political game to enjoy making speeches. 
I do not Uke it, but we have had a buDy good time on this tour, 
and we have met a lot of my old friends, — and now, gentlemen, 



"Do It Now'' 319 

remember this, if Mr. Hughes is elected on November 7th, I 
shall never be seen in politics again. I am through.' I felt 
rather sorry to hear the Colonel say this. He is so eneigetic and 
courageousi so full of the fighting spirit that we need to tone up 
the national affairs, that it seems a pity to contemplate his retire- 
ment before he attains 6o. Of course, he will write his views for 
the benefit of the reading public, but if he follows his inclination, 
he will become a quiet figure in the background, leaving 
younger men to carry through the ideas he created. We do not 
believe that the American people, however, will ever permit him 
to retire. Just as sure as "M^lson is re-elected, there will be a 
demand for Theodore Roosevelt in 1920. He knows it and he 
is trying to start the talk now througji us to show that it is the 
last thing on earth he cares to do. He would, I think, have liked 
to run Ms year; he would have liked to grapple with the 
problems which will arise after the war is over, but he tod^ his 
licking at the hands of the old-line Rq>ub]icans, and he really 
wants to see their candidate elected." 

On my brother's return from this trq>, so graphically de- 
scribed by the young and able correspondent whose prophecy 
that America would not let Theodore Roosevelt retire into ob* 
scurity* was so soon to come true, he continued, up to the eve- 
ning of the election, to hammer his opinions in stiODig, virile sen- 
tences into the minds of the audiences before whom he spoke. 
I was present in the Brooklyn Theatre, where the crowd was so 
great that one of the newspapers reported the next day: 

''Say what you will, — ^there is no other one man in this coun- 
try that can draw as large a crowd as Theodore Roosevelt. He 
is always an interesting talker as well as an interesting personal- 
ity. He is not running for 4my office tibis Fall, though to hear 
some of the other speakers and to read some of the other news- 
papers, one might be pardoned for thinking that he was run- 
ning for all of them." 

It was at that great meeting in BrocAlyn that he referred 
to a q)eech made a few days before by President Wilson in Cin- 



320 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

dnnati. In the Cindnnati speech Mr. Wilson had made the 
remark ''that it would never be right for America to remain out 
of another war." 

Colonel Roosevelt, after ringing the changes on the fact that 
what would be necessaiy in the future was in this case just as 
necessary in the present, ended with a stirring exhortation and 
the emphatic words: "Do it now, Mr. President.'' 

In spite of Colonel Roosevelt's strong plea that we should 
take our stand shoulder to shoulder on the side of the Allies in 
the great cause for which they were fighting, it must not be 
thought for one moment that Theodore Roosevelt put inter- 
nationalism above nationalism. All through the ezdting cam- 
paign of 1916, he laid the greatest emphasis upon true Amer- 
icanism. At Lewiston, Maine, in August, 1916, he said: ''I 
demand as a matter of right that every citizen voting this year 
shall consider the question at issue, from the standpoint of Amer- 
ica and not from the standpoint of any other nation. « . • The 
policy of the United States must be shaped to a view of two 
conditions only. First — with a view of the honor and interest 
of the United States, and second — ^with a view to the interest 
of the world as a whole. It is, therefore, our high and ^lemn 
duty, both to prepare our own strength so as to guarantee our 
own safety, and also to treat every foreign nation in every given 
crisis as its conduct in that crisis demands. • . • Americanism 
is a matter of the spirit, of the soul, of the mind; not of birth- 
place or creed. We care nothing as to where any man was bom 
or as to the land from which his forefathers came, so long as 
he is whole-heartedly and in good faith an American and nothing 
else. • . • The poUdes of Americanism and preparedness taken 
together mean applied patru>tism. Our first duty as dtizens 
of the nation is owed to the United States, but if we are true 
to our princq>les, we must also think of serving the interests of 
mankind at large. In addition to serving our own country, we 
must shape the policy of our country so as to secure the cause 
of inlemational right, righteousness, fair play and humanity. 



"Do It Now" 321 

Our first duty is to protect our own rights; our second, to stand 
up for the rights of others." 

The above quotation seems to me to answer indi^utably 
the mistaken affirmation that '^America First" could ever be 
a selfish slogan. 

On October 24, 1916, a letter had been sent, directed to "The 
Honorable Theodore Roosevelt, en route, Denver, Colorado." 
This missive was received on the special train from which young 
Edwin Lewis had just written to his family the stirring letters 
which I have quoted above. It is an interesting fact that the 
letter which I am about to give was signed by men the ma- 
jority of whom had not followed Theodore Roosevelt on his 
great crusade for a more progressive spirit in American politics. 
Some of them had agreed with him in 1912, but the majority 
had felt it their duty to remain inside of the political party to 
which they had given their earlier faith. Now, in the moment 
of the great crisis of our nation, these very men turned for leader- 
ship to the man whom they realized was in truth the "noblest 
Roman of them all." The communication ran as follows: 

"It is our conviction that no other Presidential campaign 
in the history of the nation ever presented graver issues or more 
far-reaching problems than does this. Not only is the domestic 
welfare of the natbn profoundly to be affected by the result, 
but the honor and the very safety of the Rq>ublic are at stake. 
... In this momentous hour, the vital need is for such a pres- 
entation of the issues as will arrest the widest attention and 
carry the dearest message to the public mind, and this task we 
commend to your hands. No living American has a greater 
audience. You have done memorable service to your country 
in awakening it to a sense of its perils and obligations and you 
have revealed an unselfish patriotism that makes your voice 
singularly potent in councils and inq>iration« Will you not lend 
it to the cause once more by addressing the people of the nation 
from a vantage ground of a great mass meeting in the metrop- 
olis? Under these circumstances, a message from Theodore 



322 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Roosevelt on America's crisis would ring from coast to coasL 
. . . The undersigned suggest Cooper Union as the place. . . " 

The signatures included many of the most distinguished 
citizens of the various States of America. My brother accepted 
this call to duty, although he had hoped to speak but little after 
his exhausting campaign in the West. I regret to say that I 
was not present at that meeting, at which, from what I have 
heard, he spoke with a conviction and a spiritual intensity rare 
even in him. The speech was called ''The Soid of the Nation." 

With burning words Theodore Roosevelt tried to arouse 
the nation's soul; with phrases hot from a heart on fire he por- 
trayed the place we should take by the side of the countries who 
were fighting for the hope of the world, but the ears of the people 
were dosed to all but the words that we had been kept ''out 
of war/' The day of the Lord was not yet at hand. 



xvn. 

WAR 

Thoa gavest to party strife the epic note^ 
And to debate the thunder of the Lord; 
To meanest issues fire of the Most High. 
Hence eyes that ne'er beheld thee now are dim. 
And alim men on alien shores lament 

— ^Stephen Phillips on Gladstone. 

ELECTION DAY, 1916, dawned with the ai^>arent success 
of the Republican party at the polls, but it eventually 
proved that the slogan, ''He kq>t us out of war/' had 
had its way, and that the Democrats were returned to power. 

Needless to say, the disappointment both to the followers 
of Charles E. Hushes and of Theodore Roosevelt was keen be- 
yond words. My brother, however, following his usual phi- 
losophy, set himself to work harder than ever to arouse his coun- 
trymen to the true appreciation of the fact that, with Europe 
aflame, America could hardly long remain out of the conflagra- 
tion. 

During the following winter, however, in spite of the great 
doud that hung over the whole world, in spite of the intimate 
knowledge that we all shared that neither would we nor could we 
avoid the horror that was to come, occasionally there would be 
brief moments of old-time gaiety in our family life, little intervals 
of happy companionship, oases in the desert of an apprehension 
that was in itself prophetic. I remember saying to my brother 
one day: ''Theodore, you know that I bebng to the Poetry So- 
ciety of America, and a great many of its members wish to meet 
you. I have really been very considerate of you, and although 
this wish has been frequently expressed for some years in the 

323 



324 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

society, I have spared you heretofore, but the moment has 
come I" ''Must I meet the poets, Pussie?" he said laughingly 
and rather deprecatingly. ''Yes/' I replied firmly. "The poets 
have their rights quite as much as the politicians, and the time 
for the poets is at hand." "All right — ^name your day," he an- 
swered, and so a day was named, and I invited a number of my 
friends amongst the poets to take tea with me on a certain after- 
noon to meet Colonel Roosevelt. I remember I asked him to 
try to come from his office early enou£^ for me to jog his memory 
about some of the work of my Various poet friends, but a large 
number of verse writers had already gathered in my sitting- 
roon; before he arrived. I placed him by my side and asked a 
friend to bring up my various guests so that I might introduce 
them to him. I remember the care with which I tried to connect 
the name of the person whom I introduced with some one of 
his or her writings, and I also remember the surprise with which 
I realized how unnecessary was all such effort on my part, for, a& 
I woidd say, "Theodore, this is Mr. So-and-So, who wrote such 
and such," he would rapidly req>ond, "But you need not tell me 
that. I remember that poem very well, indeed," and turning 
with that delightful smile of his to the flattered author, he would 
say, "I like the fifth line of the third verse of that poem of yours. 
It goes this way," and with that, in a strong, ringing voice, he 
would repeat the line referred to. As each person turned away 
from the word or two with him, which evidently gave him almost 
as much pleasure as it gave them, I could hear them say to each 
other, "How did he know that poem of mine?" When I myself 
questioned him about his knowledge of modem American 
poetry, he answered quite simply: "But you know I like poetry 
and I try to keep up on that line of literature too." He was 
very fond of some of Arthur Guiterman's clever verse, and quoted 
with special pleasure a sarcastic squib which the latter had just 
published on the navy, apropos of Mr. Daniels's attitude: "We 
are sitting with our knitting on the twelve-inch guns ! " 

Robert Frost, who was with us that afternoon, had shortly 



War 325 

before published a remarkable poem called '^ Servant to Ser- 
vants/' which had attracted my brother's attention, and of 
which he spoke with keen interest to the author. Nothing dis- 
tressed him more than the realization of the hard work perf onned 
by the farmer's wife ahnost eveiywhere in our country, and in 
this poem of Mn Frost's that situation was painted with his 
forceful pen. 

This remarkable memozy of my brother's was shown not 
only that afternoon amongst the poets, but shortly afterward 
by an incident in connection with an afternoon at the Three 
Arts Club, where he also generously consented to spend an hour 
amongst the young girls who had come from various places in 
our broad country to study one of the three arts — drama, music, 
or painting— in our great metroplis. My friend Mrs. John 
Henry Hammond, the able president of the Three Arts Club, 
was amdous that he should meet her prot£g£es and mine, for 
I was a manager of the club. I remember we lined the girls 
up in a row and had them pass in front of him in single file — 
several hundred young girls. Each was to have a shake of the 
hand and a special word from the ez-President, but none was 
supposed to pause more than a moment, as his time was limited. 
About fifty or sixty girls had already passed in front of him and 
received a cordial greeting, when a very pretty student, having 
received her greeting, paused a little longer and, looking strai^t 
at him, said: ^Xolonel Roosevelt, don't you remember me?" 
This half-laughingly — evidently having been dared to ask the 
question. Holding her hand and gazing earnestly at her, he 
paused a moment or two and then, with a brilliant flashing smile, 
said: "Of course I do. You were the little girl, seven years ago, 
on a white bucking pony at £1 Paso, Texas, where I went down 
to a reunion of my Rough Riders. I remember your little pony 
almost fell backward into the carriage when it reared at the 
noise of the band." There never was a more surprised girl than 
the one in question, for seven years had made a big difference 
in the child of twelve, the rider of the bucking white pony, and 



326 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

it had really not occuired to her that he could possibly remember 
the incident, but remember it he did, and one veiy happy heart 
was carried away that day from the Three Arts Club. 

As the winter of 1917 slipped by, there was evidence on all 
sides that the slogan on which the Democratic party had based 
its campaign efforts must soon be falsified; nothing could keep 
the American people longer from their paramount duty, and 
on April 2, 1917, President Wilson appeued before the united 
bodies of the House and the Senate in Washington, and asked 
that Congress should declare a state of war between Germany 
and ourselves. Colonel Roosevelt, always anxious to back up 
the President in any action in which he thought he was right, 
went to Washington, or rather stopped in Washington, for he 
was in the South at the time, to congratulate him on his decision 
and to offer his services to assist the President in any way that 
might be possible. 

Within a few weeks of the actual declaration of war, Mr. 
Roosevelt was already bq;ging that he might be allowed to raise 
a volunteer division, and urging that the administration Aimy 
Bill should be supplemented with legislation authorizing the 
raising of from one hundred to five hundred thousand volun- 
teers to be sent to the firing-line in Europe at the earliest pos- 
sible moment. In a letter to Senator George £. Chamberlain, 
of Or^^n, Colonel Roosevelt writes as follows: 

'^I most earnestly and heartily suj^rt the administration 
bill for providing an army raised on the principle of universal 
obligatory military training and service, but meanwhile, let us 
use volunteer forces in connection with a portion of the Regular 
army, in order, at the earliest possible moment, — ^within a few 
months, — to put our flag on the firing line. We owe this to hu- 
manity; we owe it to the small nations who have suffered such 
dreadful wrong from Germany. Most of all, we owe it to our- 
selves; to our national honor and self-respect. For the sake 
of our own souls, for the sake of the memories of the great Amer- 
icans of the past, we must show that we do not intend to make 



War 327 

this merely a dollar war. Let us pay with our bodies for our 
souls' desire. Let us, without one hour's unnecessary delay, 
put the American flag at the battle-front in this great world 
war for Democracy and civilization, and for the reign of Justice 
and fair-deaUng among the nations of mankind, 

''My proposal is to use the volunteer system not in the 
smallest degree as a substitute for, but as the, at present, neces- 
saiy supplement to the obligatoiy system. Certain of the volun- 
teer organizations could be used very soon; they could be put 
into the fighting in four months. ... I therefore propose that 
there should be added to the proposed law, a section based on 
Section 12 of the Army Act of March 2nd, 1899. • . •" 

At the same time Rq>resentative Caldwell made an open 
statement as follows: '"Hie Army Bill suggested by Secretary 
Baker will, in all probability, be introduced in the House on 
Wednesday. There have been suggestions made that a clause 
be placed in the proposed bill which would give Colonel Roose- 
velt the power to take an army division to Europe. Colonel 
Roosevelt outlined his plans to me. ... I am a Democrat 
and intend to abide by the wishes of President Wilson and told 
Cotond Roosevelt so. We agreed that there was no politics in 
this matter, and from my talk with Mr. Roosevelt, I believe 
him to be sincere in his purpose. He gave me the names of men 
throughout the country who signified their intention of joining 
his division. They include a number of men who served as of- 
ficers with him in the Spanish War, many college students, 
former officers and members of the National Guard, all of whom 
are in the best of physical condition and ready to go at a mo- 
ment's notice. Colonel Roosevelt said that a large majority 
of the men whom he hoped to take with hun are from the south 
and west." 

Already, at the first intimation that Colonel Roosevelt m^t 
lead a division into France, there had flocked to his standard 
thousands of men, just as had been the case in the old days of 
the Rough Riders. As immediate as was the rallying to his 



328 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

standard were also the attacks made upon him for having wished 
to dedicate himself to this patriotic enterprise, and one of the 
most acrimonious debates that ever occurred in the Senate of 
the United States was on the subject of the amendment to that 
Army Bill. The Democrats, led by Senator Stone, had much 
to say about the imfitness of the Colonel. They did not seem 
to realize how strong was the desire of France to have America's 
best-known citizen go to her shores at the moment when her 
morale was at the ebb; nor did they realize, apparently, the 
promise for the future that there would be in the rapid arrival 
of a large body of ardent American soldiers, well equipped to 
tide over the period of waiting before a still larger force could 
come to the assistance of the Allies. 

Senator Hiram Johnson, orator and patriot, made a glowing 
defense of Colonel Roosevelt in answering Senator Stone. It 
is interesting to realize at this moment, when former Senator 
Harding is the President of the United States, that it was he 
who offered the amendment to the Army Bill, making it pos- 
sible for Colonel Roosevelt to lead that division into France. 
Senator Johnson said: 

^^ • . I listened with surprise — ^indeed, as a senator of 
the United States, with humiliation: — ^to the remarks of the 
senior senator from Missouri as he excoriated Theodore 
Roosevelt and as he held up to scorn and contumely what 
he termed contemptuously 'The Roosevelt Division.' What 
is it that is asked for The Roosevelt Division ? It is asked 
only by a man who is now really in the twili^t of life that he 
may finally lay down his life for the country that is his. It is 
only that he asks that he may serve that country, may go forth 
to battle for his country's rights, and may do all that may be 
done by a human being on behalf of his nation. My God! When 
was it that a nation denied to its sons the right to fight in its 
behalf? We have stood shoulder to shoulder both sides of this 
Chamber in this war. To say that Roosevelt desires, for per- 
sonal ambition and political favor hereafter, to go to war is to 



War 329 

deny the entire life of this patriot. • . • Our distinguished sena- 
tor has said that Roosevelt has toured the land in the endeavor 
to do that which he desires. Aye, he has toured the land; he 
toured the land for preparedness two and a half years ago, and 
he was laughed at as hysterical. He toured the land two and a 
half years ago and continuously ^ce for undiluted Americanism, 
and you said he was filled with jingoism. To-day you have 
adopted his preparedness plan; to-day his undiluted American- 
ism that he preached to many, to which but few listened, has 
become the slogan of the whole nation. He toured the land for 
patriotism! . . . After all, my friends, Roosevelt fought in 
the past and he fought for the United States of America; after 
all, he asks only that he be permitted to fight to-day for the 
United States of America. He is accused of a lack of experience. 
. . , There is one thing this man has — one thing that he has 
proven in the life he has lived in the open in this nation— he 
has red blood in his veins and he has the ability to fight and he 
has the tenacity to win when he fights, and that is the sort of 
an American that is needed and required in this war. I say to 
you, gentlemen of this particular assemblage, that if a man can 
raise a division, if he wishes to fight, die, if need be, for his coim-- 
try, it is a sad and an awful thing that his motive shall be ques- 
tioned and his opinions assailed in the veiy act that is indeed 
the closing act of his career. 

''Oh I for more Roosevelts in this nation; oh ! for more men 
who will stand upon the hustings and go about the country 
preaching the undiluted Americanism that all of us daim to 
have I Oh I for more Roosevelts and more divisions of men who 
will follow Roosevelt ! With more Roosevelts and more Roose- 
velt divisions, the flag of the United States will go forth in this 
great world conflict to the victory that every real American 
should desire and demand." 

Part of the afternoon just before the final vote on the above 
amendment to that Army Bill was spent by Theodore Roose- 
velt in my library in New York. Those were the days when 



330 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

Mr. Balfour, M. Viviani, and General Joffre were receiving the 
acclamation and the plaudits of the American people. At sev- 
eral of the great ovations given to them, Theodore Roosevelt 
was also on the platform, and it was frequentiy brought to my 
notice by others that the tribute to him when he entered or left 
the assemblage was equal in its enthusiasm to that for the dis- 
tinguished guests. On the afternoon to which I have referred, 
the French ambassador came for a quiet cup of tea with me and 
my brother, and to his old friend and his sister the Colonel was 
willing to unbosom his heart. He spoke poignantiy of his desire 
to lead his division into France. Over and over again he re- 
peated: ^'The President need not fear me politically. No one 
need fear me politically. If I am allowed to go, I could not last; 
I am too old to last long under such circumstances. I should 
crack [he repeated frequentiy: '^I shoidd cracV^\ but [with a 
vivid gleam of his white teeth] I could arouse the belief that 
America was coming. I could show the Allies what was on the 
way, and then if I did crack, the President could use me to come 
back and arouse more enthusiasm here and take some more 
men over. That is what I am good for now, and what differ- 
ence would it make if I cracked or not 1'' 

The amendment was passed that made it possible for volim- 
teers to go to France, but the beloved wish of his heart was de- 
nied by those in authority to that most eager of volunteers. 
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. 

In July my brother wrote an open letter of farewell, dis- 
banding the division for which there had been tentatively so 
many volunteers. After a correspondence with the secretary 
of war, a correspondence which Theodore Roosevelt himself 
has given to the world, the definite decision was made that he 
would not be allowed to ''give his body for his soul's desire," 
and shortiy after that decision I sent him the following poem, 
which had been shown to me by one of his devoted admirers, 
the poet Marion Couthouy Smith. It ran as follows : 



k*«> <• # 



War 331 



FAREWELLS 

''In old Fraunces Tavern, 

Once I was told 
Of Washington's farewell to his generals. 

Generals crowned mih victory. 
And tears filled my eyts. — 

''But when I read 

Roosevelt's letter disbanding his volunteers, — 
Vdunteers despised and rejected, — 
Tears filled my heart!" 

In acknowledging the poem on July 3, 2917, from Sagamore 
Hill, my brother writes: 

''I loved your letter; and as for the little poem, I prize it 
more than an}rthing that has been written about me; I shall 
keep it as the epitaph of the division and of me. We have just 
heard that Ted and Archie have landed in France. Lord North- 
diffe wired me this morning that Lord Derby offered Kermit a 
position on the staff of the British army in Mesopotamia. [After 
hard fighting in Mesopotamia, Kermit was later transferred to 
the American forces in France.] I do not know when he will 
sail. Quentin has passed his examinations for the flying corps. 
He hopes to sail this month. Dick [Richard Derby, his sonr 
in-law] is so anxious to go down to Camp Oglethorpe that Ethd 
is almost as anxious to have him go. Eleanor [young Theodore's 
wife] sails for France on Saturday to do Y. M. C. A. work. I 
remain, as a slacker 'malgr6 lui I' Give my love to Corinne and 
Joe and Helen and Teddy. I am immensely pleased about Doro- 
thy's baby. [Dorothy, my son Monroe's wife.] Edith asked 
Fanny to come out on Friday with our deli^tful friend, Beebe 
the naturalist. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Beebe is a great friend 
of mine." 

The ''slacker malgr6 lui" accepted the gravest disappoint- 
ment of his Ufe as he did any other disappointment — eyes for- 



332 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

ward, shoulders squared, and head thrown back. It was hard 
for him, however, to busy himself, as he said, with what he con- 
sidered ''utterly pointless and fussy activities," when his whole 
soul was in the great conflict on the far side of the water, from 
which one of his boys was not to return, and where two of the 
others were to be seriously wounded. 

Writing on October 5, 1917, he says: "Of course I stood 
by Mitchel." This refers to a hot campaign which was waging 
around the figure of the young mayor of New Yoi^k City, John 
Purroy Mitdiel, who had given New York City the best ad- 
ministration for many a long year and was up for re-election 
but, unfortunately, due to many surprising circumstances, was 
later defeated. My brother had the greatest admiration for the 
fearlessness and ability of the young mayor, and later, when 
that same gallant American entered the flying service and was 
killed in a trial flight, no one mourned him more sincerely than 
did the man who always recognized courage and determination 
and patriotism in Democrat or Republican alike. 

About the same time, in speaking of General Franklin Bell, 
who was in charge of Camp Upton, he says: "The latter is keenly 
eager to go abroad. He says that if he is not sent, he will retire 
and go abroad as a volunteer." By a strange chance, a snap- 
shot was taken of the first division of drafted men sent to Camp 
Upton just as they were passing the reviewing-stand, on which 
stood together Franklin Bell, John Purroy Mitchel, and Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. The expression on my brother's face was one 
so spiritual, so exalted in aspect, that I am reproducing the 
picture. 

All through that autumn he gave himself unstintedly to 
war work of all kinds, and amongst other things came, at my 
request, to a 'fatherless Children of France" booth at the 
great Allied Bazaar. The excitement in front of the booth as 
he stood there was intense, and as usual the admirers who strug- 
gled to shake his hand were of the most varied character. We 
decided to charge fifty cents for a hand-shake, and we lau^^ed 



War 333 

ixmnoderately at the numbers of repeaters. One man, how- 
ever, having apparently approached the booth from curiosity, 
said "it wasn't worth it." The indignation of the crowd was 
so great that immediately there were volunteers to pay for three 
and four extra hand-shakes to shame the delinquent ! 

Shortly before that, a friend of Colonel Jdhn W. Vrooman's 
wrote to him about a certain meeting at the Union League Club 
called to witness a send-off to some of the soldiers. The writer 
says: 

"The moment Colonel Roosevelt appeared on the review- 
ing stand he was recognized and the vicinity of the Club was 
in an uproar. Later on when visiting a party in the private 
dining room, he had only been in the room about three minutes 
when he was recognized by the girls and boys who were looking 
at the review from a building on the opposite side of the street. 
Just to show you how he reaches the heart of the people, they 
cheered and waved at him until his attention was attracted and 
he had to go to the window and salute them. Although he was 
an hour and a half in conversation in the dub, he did not forget 
his little friends across the way but on leaving, went to the win- 
dow and waved goodbye to them. Every youngster present 
will relate this incident, I am sure, for a long time to come. In 
leaving the Club house, he was set upon, it seemed to me, by 
the youngsters of the East Side so that he had to beg his way 
through the crowd that had been waiting in the rain three hours 
just to see him, and in getting into the automobile, they ap- 
peared to an on-looker to be clambering all over him, and I would 
not be surprised if he carried a few of them away in his pockets 
as he carried most of their little hearts with him.'' 

Li the midst of all the excitement, we occasional^ snatched 
a moment for a quiet luncheon. "Fine I" he writes me on No- 
vember 5. "Yes,—- Thursday, — ^the Langdon at 1:30. It will 
be fine to see Patty Selmes." How he did enjoy seeing our mu- 
tual friend Patty Selmes that day I As "Patty Flandrau" of 
Kentucky she had married Tilden Sehnes just about the time 



334 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

that Theodore Roosevelt had taken up his residence in the Bad 
Lands of Dakota, where the young married couple had also 
migrated. Nothing was ever more entertaining than to start 
the "don't you remember" conversations between my brother 
and his old friend Mrs. Selmes. Each would cap some w3d 
Western story of the other with one equally wild and amusing, 
and the tales of their adventures with the Marquis de Mor€s 
would have shamed Dumas himself I 

Another little note came to me shortly after the above, sug- 
gesting that he should spend the mg^t and have one of the old- 
time breakfasts that he loved. "Breakfast is really the meal 
for long and intimate conversation." He writes the postscrq>t 
which he adds he knew would please my heart, for one of my 
sons, owing to a slight defect in one eye, had had difficulty in 
being accq>ted in the army, but througih strong determination 
had finally achieved a captaincy in the ammunition train of the 
77th Division. My brother says in the postscript: ''I genu- 
inely admire and re^>ect Monroe." About New Year's eve a 
letter came to my husband from him in answer to a congratula- 
tory letter on the fine actions of my brother's boys. ''Of course, 
we are very proud of Archie, and General Duncan has just 
written us about Ted in terms that make our hearts glow. 
Well, there is no telling what the New Year has in store. The 
hand of Fate may be heavy upon us, but we can all be sure that 
it will not take away our pride in our boys. [My son Monroe 
was eipecting to be sent soon to France in the 77th Division, 
and my eldest son, who had broken his leg, was hoping to get 
into a camp when the leg had recovered its power.] I cannot 
tell you, my dear Douglas, how much you and Corinne have 
done for us and have meant to us during the last six months. 
Ever yours, T. R." 

In the ''Life and Letters of George Eliot" she dwells upon 
the fact that so many people lose the great opportunity of giving 
to others the outward expression of their love and appreciation, 
and as I re-read my brother's treasured letters, I realize fully 



War 335 

what the authoress meant, and how much the giver of such 
honest and loving expression wins in return from those to whom 
the happiness of appreciation has been rendered. 

The year 191 7 was over; the American people once more 
could look with level eyes in the faces of their allies in the great 
world effort for righteousness. In the midst of thougihts of war, 
in the midst of clamor of all sorts, in the midst of grave anxiety 
for the sons of his heart, wearing a service pin with five stars 
upon it — for he regarded his gallant son-in-law Doctor Richard 
Derby as one of his own flesh and blood — Theodore Roosevelt 
still had time to speak and write on certain subjects close in 
another- way than war to the hearts and minds of the people. 
Writing for the Ladies^ Home Journal an article called ''Shall 
We Do Away with the Church?" he sa}rs certain things of per- 
manent import to the nation. 

"In the pioneer days of the West, we found it an unfailing 
rule that after a oommunity^ had existed for a certain length 
of time, either a church was built or else the community began 
to go downhill. In these old communities of the Eastern States 
which have gone backward, it is noticeable that the retrogression 
has been both marked and accentuated by a rapid decline in 
church membership and work, the two facts being so inter- 
related that each stands to the other partly as a cause and 
partly as an effect." After reviewing the self-indulgent Sunday 
in contradistinction to the church-going Sunday, he says: 

*^ I doubt whether the frank protest of nothing but amuse- 
ment has really brought as much happiness as if it had been 
alloyed with and supplemented by some nimimnm meeting of 
oblq;ation toward others. Therefore, on Sunday go to church. 
Yes, — ^I know all the excuses; I know that one can worsh^> the 
Creator and dedicate oneself to good living in a grove of trees or 
by a running brook or in one's own house Just as well as in a 
church, but I also know that as a matter of cold fact, the average 
man does not thus worship or thus dedicate himself. If he stays 
away from church he does not q>end his time in good works or in 



336 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

lofty meditatioiL • • • He may not hear agood sennon at diurch 
but unless he is veiy unfortunate he will hear a sennon by a 
good man who, with his good wife, is engaged all the week long 
in a series of wearing and hum-drum and important tasks for 
making hard lives a little easier; and both this man and this 
wife are, in the vast majority of cases, showing much self-denial, 
and doing much for humble folks of whom few others think, and 
they are keeping up a brave show on narrow means. Surely, 
the average man ought to sympathize with the work done by 
such a couple and ought to help them, and he cannot help them 
unless he is a reasonably regular church attendant. Besides, 
even if he does not hear a good sennon, the probabilities are 
that he will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful 
passages from the Bible, and ii he is not familiar with the Bible, 
he has suffered a loss which he had better make all possible haste 
to correct. He will meet and nod to or speak to good, quiet 
neighbors. If he doesn't think about himself too much, he wiU 
benefit himself vezy much, especially as he b^gius to think chiefly 
of others. . • . 

"I advocate a man's joining in church work for the sake of 
showing his faith by his works; I leave to professional theo- 
logians the settlement of the question, whether he is to achieve 
his salvation by his works or by faith which is only genuine if 
it eatresses itself in works. Micah's insistence upon love and 
mercy, and doing justice and walking humbly with the Lord's 
will, should suffice if lived up to. • • • Let the man not think 
overmuch of saving his own soul. That will come of itself, if 
he tries in good earnest to look after his neigihbor both in soul 
and in body^-remembering always that he had better leave his 
neighbor alone rather than show arrogance and lack of. tactful- 
ness in the effort to help him. The churdi on the other hand 
must fit itself for the practical betterment of mankind if it is 
to attract and retain the fealty of the men best worth holding 
and using." 

Space forbids my quoting further from this, to me, ezcq>- 



War 337 

tionally interesting article which doses with this sentence: ''The 
man who does not in some way, active or not, connect himself 
with some active working church, misses many opportunities 
for helping his neighbors and therefore, incidentally, for help- 
ing himself." 

And again, in an address at the old historic church of Johns- 
town in Pennsylvania, he makes a great plea for the church of 
the new democracy, and la}rs stress upon the fact that unless 
individuals can honestly believe in their hearts that their coun- 
try would be better off without any churches, these same in- 
dividuals must acknowledge the fact that it is their duty to 
uphold, by their presence in them, the churches which they know 
to be indispensable to the vigor and stability^ of the nation. 

In the first week of February, 1918, he had arranged to come 
to me for a cup of tea to meet one or two literary friends, and 
the message came that he was not well and was going to the 
hospital instead. The maUgnant Brazilian fever, always lurk- 
ing, ready to spring at his vitality, had shown itself in a pecu- 
liarly painful way, and an operation was considered necessary. 
As his own sons were far away, my son Monroe, who was soon to 
sail for France, was able to assist in taking him to Roosevelt 
Hoq>ital, and there the operation was successfuUy performed; 
but within twenty-four hours, an unexpected danger connected 
with the ears had arisen, and for one terrible mg^t the doctors 
feared for his life, as the trouble threatened the base of the brain. 
The rumor spread that he was dying, and on February 8th the 
New York Trilmne printed at the head of its editorial page this 
short and touching sentence: ''Theodore Roosevelt — ^Ustenl 
You must be up and well again; we cannot have it otherwise; 
we could not run this world without you." At the time these 
words were printed, I was told by my sister-in-law and by the 
doctor that he wanted to speak to me (I had been in the hos- 
pital waiting anxiously near his room) and that they felt that 
it would trouble him if he did not have his wish; they cautioned 
me to put my ear dose down to his lips, for even a sligiht move- 



338 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

ment of the head might bring about a fatal result. My readers 
must remember what was happening on the other side of the 
ocean as Theodore Roosevelt lay sick unto death in the dty 
of his birth. The most critical period of the Great War was 
at hand. Very soon the terrible ''March offensive" was to be- 
gin. Very soon we were to hear that solemn call from General 
Haig that his ''back was against the wall." We were all keyed 
up to the highest extent; all of my brother's sons were at the 
front, my own son was about to sail, and at this most critical 
moment the man to whom the youth of America looked for lead- 
ership was stricken and laid low. 

As I entered the sick-room, all this was in my mind. Con* 
trolling myself to all outward appearance, I put my ear dose to 
his lips, and these were the words which Theodore Roosevdt 
said to his sister, words which he fully believed would be the 
last he could ever say to her. Thank God he did speak to 
me many times again, and we had deven months more of dose 
and intimate conununion, but at that moment he was facing 
the valley of the shadow. As I leaned over him, in a hoarse 
whisper he said: "I am so glad that it is not one of my boys 
who is dying here, for they can die for their country." 

As he gradually convalesced from that serious iUness, many 
were our intimate hours of conversation. The hospital was 
besieged by adoring multitudes of inquirers. I remember tak* 
ing a tazicab myself one day to go there, and when I said to the 
Italian driver, "Go to the Roosevdt Hospital," the quidL re- 
sponse came: "You go see Roosevdt — ^they all go see Roosevdt 
-—they all go ask how Roosevdt is— he my friend, too— you tell 
him get well for me." Every sort of individual, as he grew 
stronger, waited in the corridor for a chance to consult him on 
this or that subject. Of course few were allowed to do so, but it 
was more than ever evident by the throng of men, distinguished 
in the public affairs of the country, who bagged admittance even 
for a few moments that the "Colond" was still the Mecca 
toward which the trend of political hope was turning I 



War 339 

After a brief rest at Oyster Bay he insisted upon keeping 
the appointments to speak in various states, appointments the 
breaking of which his iUness had necessitated. His great ovation 
in Maine showed b^ond dispute how the heart of the Rq>ublican 
party was turning to its old-time leader, and every war work, 
needless to say, clamored for a speech from him. One of his 
most characteristic notes was in connection with my plea that 
he should speak at Carnegie Hall for the Red Cross on a certain 
May afternoon. Josef Hofmann had promised to come all the 
way from Aiken to play for the benefit if Theodore Roosevelt 
were to be the speaker of the occasion, and in writing him on the 
subject, I laid stress on the sacrifice of time and energy of the 
great pianist, and in my zeal apparently gave the impression 
that my brother was to do a great favor to Josef Hofmann rather 
than the Red Cross, and he answers me humorously: '^ Darling 
Corinne: — All right! — A ten-minute speech for the pianist. 
That goes I'' He always considered it a great joke that it was 
necessary for Josef Hofmann to have him speak. 

That same May one lovely afternoon stands out most dearly. 
John Masefield, the great English poet, had been several times 
in the country. My brother knew his work well but had not 
met him, and I had had that privilege. I wished to take him 
to Oyster Bay, and the invitation was gladly forthcoming. It 
proved fair and beautiful, and Mr. Masefield and I motored 
out to luncheon. On the veranda at Sagamore Hill were my 
brother and Mrs. Roosevelt, their daughter Mrs. Derby and 
her lovely children, and later John Masefield took little Richard 
on his lap and wove for him a tale to which we grown people 
listened, my brother resting his eyes gladly on the little boy's 
head as he leaned against the poet. After the story was told, 
we wandered off to a distant summer-house overlooking both 
sides of the bay, and there Theodore Roosevelt and John Mase- 
field spoke intimately together of many things. It was a day 
of sunUght in early spring, and the air was fuU ''of a summer 
to be," but under the outward calm and beauty of the sun and 



340 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

sea lay a poignant sadness for our sons wlio were in a distant 
land, for the moment had come when the American troops were 
to show their valor in a great cause. 

The day after the Carnegie Hall speech for the Red Cross, 
one of his most flaming addresses, in which he pictured the young 
men of America as Galahads of modern days, I wrote to him 
of my gratitude and emotion, and he answers at once (how did 
he ever find the time to answer so immediately so many letters 
which came to him) : 

^'Darling Corinne: — ^That is a very dear letter of yours; your 
sons and my sons were before my eyes as I spoke. I am leaving 
tomorrow for the West until May 31st. I leave again on June 
6th, returning on the 13th, and on Saturday, the 15th, must 
go to a Trinity College function and stay with Bye. [Referring 
to my sister, Mrs. Cowles.] Will you take me out in your motor 
to Oyster Bay for dinner when I return?" Already he had 
plunged into what he considered his active duty and was over- 
taxing his strength — that strength only so lately restored, and 
not entirely restored — ^in the service of his country. 

It was at Indiana University in June of that year that he 
made one of his most significant pronouncements, a pronounce- 
ment especially significant in the light of the so-called Sinn Fdn 
activities during the last two years in this country. He was 
very fond of the Irish, and fond of many of the Irish-bom citizens 
of America, and always loved to refer to his own Irish blood, 
but he had no sympathy whatsoever with certain attitudes taken 
by certain Irish-bom or naturalized Americans under the name, 
falsely used, of patriotism, and he speaks his mind courageously 
and dearly at Indiana University. 

'^ Friends, it is unpatriotic and un-American to damage 
America because you love another country, but there is one 
thing worse and that is to damage America because you hate 
another country. The Sinn Feiner who acts against America 
because he hates England is a worse creature than the mem- 
ber of the German-American Alliance who has acted against 



War 341 

America because he loves Germany. I want to point out this 
bit of etymological information: Sinn Fein means 'Us, Our- 
selves.' It means that those who adopt that name are fighting 
for themselves, for a certain division of people across the sea. 
What right have they to come to America? Their very name 
shows that they are not American; that they are for themselves 
against America." 

In July, when I had been threatened with rather serious 
trouble in my eyes, he again writes with his usual unfailing sym- 
pathy:^'! think of you all the time. I so hate to have you threat- 
ened by trouble with your eyes or any other trouble. Edgar 
Lee Masters spent a couple of hours here yesterday. Ethel and 
her two blessed bunnies have gone. I miss Pitty Pat and Tippy 
Toe frightfully." Little ^'Edie," his youngest granddaugihter, 
was a special pet, and rarely did one visit Sagamore at that tune 
without finding the lovely rosy baby in his arms. He could 
hardly pass her baby-carriage when she slept without stopping 
to look at her, for which nefarious action he was sometimes 
severely chastised by the stem young mother. But the burn- 
ing heart of Theodore Roosevelt could hardly ever be assuaged 
even by the sweet unconsciousness of the little children who 
knew not of the dangers faced so gallantly by their father and 
their mother's brothers. 

America had been over fourteen months in the Great War 
when aa editorial appeared in one of the important newspapers 
called ''The Impatience of Theodore Roosevelt." It ran as 
follows : 

"There is a certain disposition to criticise Theodore Roose- 
velt for what is termed his ultra views regarding the war. It 
is not all captious criticism. Some people honestly feel that 
he has been impatient and fault-finding. Much of the picture 
is true. He ^oj been impatient; he Ao^ taken what may be called 
an ultra position; he has found fault, but we should like to point 
out one very distinct fact. Theodore Roosevelt from the first 
day we entered the war has stood unswervingly and whole-heart- 



342 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

edly for throwing the complete strength of the nation into the 
war. For that matter, he held this position, preached this doc- 
trine long before we entered the war. He preached the draft, 
he preached preparation, he preached the sending of the largest 
possible army to FidJict,— from tiie beginning. Now the fact 
we wish to point out is that the country is not growing away 
from Theodore Roosevelt's position, — it is growing toward it. 
It has been actually moving toward it of late very rapidly. This 
is true not merely of the great mass of people, but of their rep- 
resentatives at Washington, . . . and perhaps even some mem- 
bers of the Cabinet and the President himself. Practically 
the whole nation now is unreservedly for throwing the whole 
strength of the nation to the side of the allies. This was not 
true a year ago today, althougih we had then been oflBically at 
war with Germany for more than two months. Today the whole 
nation stands where Theodore Roosevelt stood one year ago, 
and two years ago, and three years ago. — ^In point of fact, ever 
since the day when by the sinking of the Lusilania, Gennany 
declared itself an outlaw to the name of civilization. We do 
not mean to say that Theodore Roosevelt was the nation's sole 
leader, but we do wish to say that he was very distinctly a leader, 
and later, in the highest and best sense, — a man who saw, far 
ahead of many others, what ought to be and what must be, and 
then threw his whole heart and soul into bringing the nation 
and many reluctant minds to his point of view. We write: He 
may have been impatient; he may have found fault, but we 
think that most Americans of whatever party color, if they 
now have any regrets, have these regrets because we could not 
earlier have come nearer to the ideal set up a year, or two years, 
or three years ago by Theodore Roosevelt If this is not one 
of the highest standards of leadership, we do not understand 
the meaning of the term." 

Events were moving rapidly. Our American soldiers were 
already playing a gallant part in the terrible drama enacted 
on the fields and forests of France and in the fastnesses of the 



War 343 

ItaUan hills. News had come of ''Archie's" wounds and of 
"Ted's" woundSy and Quentin had already made his trial 
flights, while Kermit had been transferred from the British 
army to his own flag. 

Political events in America were also marching rapidly for- 
ward. Already, wherever <me lent a Ibtening ear, the growing 
murmur rose louder and louder that Theodore Roosevelt was 
the only candidate to be nominated by the Rq>ublican party 
in 1920. The men who had parted from him in 1912, the men 
who had not rallied around him in 1916, were all eagerly rang- 
ing themselves on the side of this importunate rumor. A cul- 
minating moment was approaching. It was the middle of July, 
and the informal convention of the Rq>ublican party in New 
York State was about to take place at Saratoga. My eldest son. 
State Senator Theodore Douglas Robinson, led a number of men 
in the opposition of the then incumbent of the gubernatorial 
chair, Charles S. Whitman. The hearts of many were strong 
with desire that my brother himself should be the Rq>ublican 
nominee for the next governor of New York State. No one 
knew his attitude on the subject, but he had promised to make 
the address of the occasion, my son having been appointed to 
make the request that he should do so. My husband and I had 
arranged to meet him in Saratoga, my son having preceded us 
to Albany to make all the formal arrangements. The day be- 
fore the conventicm was to take place the terrible news came 
that Quentin was killed. Of course there was a forlorn hope 
that this information might not be true, that the gallant boy 
might perhaps have reached the earth alive and might already 
be a prisoner in a German camp, but there seemed but little 
doubt of the truth of the terrible fact. My son telephoned me 
the news from Albany before the morning paper could arrive 
at my country home, and at the same time said to me that he 
did not fed justified in asking his Unde Theodore whether he 
still would come to Saratoga, but that he wanted me to get this 
information for him if possible. 



344 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

My country home in the Mohawk Hills of New York State is 
many miles from Sa^^amore Hill on Long Island, and it was dif- 
ficult to get telephone connection. My heart was unspeakably 
sore and heavy at the thought of the terrible sorrow that had 
come to my sister-in-law and my brother, and I shrank from 
asking any question concerning any matter ezcq>t the sad news 
of the death of Quentin, or imminent danger to him. My brother 
himself came to the telephone; the sound of his voice was as 
if steel had entered iato the tone. As years before he had written 
me from South Africa in my own great sorrow, he had "grasped 
the nettle." I asked him whether he would like me to come 
down at once to Oyster Bay, and his answer was almost harsh 
in its rapidity^: "Of course not — ^I will meet you in Saratoga 
as arranged. It is more than ever my duty^ to be there. You 
can come down to New York after the convention." The very 
tone of his voice made me realize the agony ia his heart, but 
duty^ was paramount. The affairs of his State, the affairs of 
the nation, needed his counsel, needed his self-control. His 
boy had paid the final price of duty^; was he, the father who had 
tau^t that boy the ideal of service and sacrifice, to shrink in 
cowardly fashion at the crucial moment ? 

The next day I met him ia Albany and motored hhn to Sara- 
toga. His face was set and grave, but he welcomed my sym- 
pathy generously. Meanwhile, the nij^t before there had been 
great excitement in Saratoga. A number of delegates were in 
favor of renominating Governor Charles S. Whitman on the 
Republican ticket, but a laige and important group of men, 
in fact, the largest and most important group in the Republican 
party of New York State, were extremely anxious that Colonel 
Roosevelt should allow his name to be brought forward as a 
candidate for governor. Elihu Root, William Howard Taft, and 
many of the weighty^ "bosses" of the various counties lent all 
their efforts toward this achievement Colonel Roosevelt, on his 
arrival in Saratoga, took a quiet luncheon with my family, Mrs. 
Parsons, and myself, after which we adjourned to the large hall 



War 345 

in which the convention was to be held. I remember before 
we left him that Mrs. Parsons suggested the insertion of a sen- 
tence in the speech which he was about to make, and his imme- 
diate and grateful response to the suggestion. No one had a 
more open mind to the helpful suggestion of others. 

The great hall was ahready filled to overflowing when we ar- 
rived, and it was difficult for us to find our seats, even although 
they had been carefully reserved for us. The atmosphere of 
the crowd in the great building was different from that of any 
concourse of people who had hitherto waited the coming of 
Theodore Roosevelt. At other times, in other crowds, when 
their favorite leader was expected, there had always been a qual- 
ity of hilarity and gay familiarity^ showing itself in songs and 
demonstrations in which the oft-repeated ''We want Teddy — 
we want Teddy" almost always was heard, but in this great 
assemblage there was a hushed silence and soUdtude for their 
beloved friend, a personal outflowing of silent sympathy for the 
man whose youngest, whose ''Benjamin," had so latety paid 
the final price, and even a few minutes later, when to the strains 
of the "Star-Spangled-Banner," Colonel Roosevelt was escorted 
up the aisle by my son, Senator Robinson, and Congressman 
Cox, from his own Nassau County^, the many faces turned eagerly 
to watch him showed in strained eyes and set though quivering 
lips their efforts at self-control. As he began his speech, we real- 
ized fully that he was holding himself firmly together, but as he 
poured out his message of Americanism, as he pleaded for the 
finer and truer patriotism to be brougiht more closely and 
definitely into political action, he lost the sense of the great be- 
reavement that had come to him, in his dedication anew to the 
effort to arouse in his countrymen the selfless desire for service, 
with which he had always fronted the problems of his own 
life. Toward the end of the speech, thou^ he never referred 
to his sorrow, the realization of it again gripped him with 
its inevitable torture, and again the people who sat in breath- 
less silence — Glistening to one to whom they had always listened 



346 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

— ^followed in their hearts the hard path that he was bravely 
treading. 

The convention adjourned, and he asked the leaders to wait 
until the following day, at least, for his answer to the Round- 
Robin request which had been sent to him, but he did not give 
much hope that he would look favorably upon their desire that 
he should allow his name to be put in nomination as candidate 
for governor. I motored him back to Albany and tock the train 
with him for New York. In recalling the hours of intercourse 
that afternoon and early evening, the great impression made 
upon my mind by his attitude was one of ineffable gentleness. 
Never was he more loving in his interest about me and mine; 
never was he less thou^tful of self. I realized that he needed 
quiet, and when I found that my seat was in a different car from 
his, although several people offered to change their seats with 
me, I felt that after our drive together, it would do hhn more 
good to be alone and read than to try to talk to me. I told him 
I would order our dinner and would come back for him when 
it was time for the meal, and I left him with his usual book in 
his hand. When I came back, however, I stood behind him for 
a moment or two before making myself known to him again, and 
I could see that he was not reading, that his sombre eyes were 
fixed on the swiftly passing woodlands and the river, and that 
the book had not the power of distracting him from the all-em- 
bracing grief which enveloped him. When I spoke, however, 
he turned with a responsive smile, and during our whole meal 
gave me, as ever, the benefit of his delightful knowledge of all 
the affairs of the world. 

Only once during our talk did he speak of the Round 
Robin, and especially of my son's desire that he should be the 
nominee for governor. He used an expression in discussing the 
matter which gave me at once a sense of ahnost physical ap- 
prehension. Looking at me gravely, he said: ^'Corinne, I have 
only one fight left in me, and I think I should reserve my strength 
in case I am needed in 1920." The contraction of my heart was 



War 347 

swift and painful, and I said: ''Theodore, you don't fed really ill, 
do you ?" ''No," he said; "but I am not what I was and there 
is only one fi^t left in me." I suggested that that fight would 
probably be made easier by this premonitory battle, but he shook 
his head and I could see that there was but little chance of his 
undertaking the factional warfare of a state campaign, nor did 
he seem to fed, as did some others, that to win the dection for 
governor of New York State would be of distinct advantage 
in connection with the great fight to come in 1920. The follow- 
ing week Theodore Roosevdt definitdy refused to let his name 
be put before the people as a candidate for the governorship 
of the Empire State. 

That evening on arriving late in New York, he would not let 
me go to the Langdon Hotd with him, but insisted on taking me 
to my own house. The next morning I went early to the Lang- 
don, hoping for better news, and saw my sister-in-law, whose won- 
derful self-control was a lesson to all those who have had to meet 
the ultimate pain of life. I could see that she had but little hope, 
but for my brother's sake, until the actual confirmation of Quen- 
tin's death, she bravdy hoped for hope. Later, Colond Roose- 
vdt made a statement from Oyster Bay in connection with the 
many tdegrams and cables of sympathy which they recdved. 
He said: "These messages were not meant for publication but 
to express sympathy with Quentin's father and mother, and 
sorrow for a gallant boy who had been doing his duty^ like hun- 
dreds of thousands of young Americans. Many of them indeed, 
I think, were really an expression of sympathy from the mothers 
and fathers who have gladly and proudly, and yet with sorrow, 
seen the sons they love go forth to battle for their countiy and 
the right. These tdq^rams, cables, and letters show the spirit 
of our whole people." 

The noble attitude of my brother and sister-in-law roused 
deq> admiration, and I have always fdt that their influence 
was never more fdt than when with aching hearts they con- 
tinued quietly to go about their daily duties. 



34^ My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

On August 3d a letter came to me from Dark Harbor, Maine, 
where Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt had gone to visit their daugh- 
ter Mrs. Derby. '^ Darling Corinne: — ^Indeed it would be the 
greatest pleasure — ^I mean that exactly, — to have you bring little 
Douglas to Sagamore in the holidays. [He refers to my grand- 
son, the son of Theodore Douglas Robinson.] All the people 
here are most considerate and the children a comfort. Little 
Edie is as pretty^ as a picture and a Uttle darling; she has been 
vezy much of a chimney swallow this morning, clinging to who- 
ever will take her up and cuddle her." In the latter part of the 
letter he refers to my own great loss nine years before of my young- 
est son in his twentieth year, and says: ^' Your burden was even 
harder to bear than ours, for Stewart's life was even shorter 
than Quentin's and he had less chance to give shape to what 
there was in him, but, after all, when the young die at the crest 
of their Uf e, in their golden morning, the degrees of difference are 
merely degrees in bitterness; and yet, there is nothing more cow- 
ardly than to be beaten down by sorrows which nothing we can 
do will change. Love to Douglas, Helen and Teddy, and to 
Fanny if she is with you." The sentence of this brave letter in 
which my brother speaks of its being '' cowardly to be beaten 
down by sorrows which nothing we do can change" is typical of 
the attitude which he had preserved through his whole life. 
Theodore Roosevelt was a great sharer and a great lover, but 
above all else he was essentially the courageous man who faced 
squarely whatever came, and by so facing conquered. 

A few days later, again a dear letter came from Dark Harbor, 
and once more he dwells upon the baby girl who comforted him 
with her sweet, unconscious merriment. He says: ''She is such 
a pretty little baby and with such cunning little ways. I fear 
I am not an unprejudiced witness. The little, curly-headed 
rascal is at this moment, crawling actively around my feet in 
her usual, absurd garb of blue overalls, drawn over her dainty 
dresses, because otherwise, she would ruin evety garment she 
has on and skin her little bare knees. I heartily congratulate 



War 349 

Teddy on going to camp. Give Corinne and Helen my dearest 
love and to all the others too." The congratulations sent to 
my eldest son were indeed deserved, for the serious break to his 
leg having at last fully recovered, and a new camp near Louis- 
ville, Ky., having been started for men above the draft age, 
my son with real sacrifice resigned from his position in the 
Senate (having just been nominated for a second teim), and 
started for Camp Taylor, where later he received his commis- 
sion. My brother was very proud of the fact that, with hardly 
an exception, each son, nephew, or cousin of the Roosevelt and 
Robinson famity was actively enrolled in the country's service. 

On August i8, having returned to Sagamore Hill, a little 
line comes to me of appreciation of a poem that I had written 
called ''Italy." ''I am particularly g^ you wrote it," he says, 
and referring to my son-in-law, he continues: "Joe and Corinne 
lunched here yesterday; they were dear, — ^I admire them both 
so much." He never failed, as I have said before, in giving me 
the joy of knowing when he admired those most dear to me. 
The following day, August 19, Mr. Colgate Ho}rt, a generous 
neighbor, wrote to Colonel Roosevelt making the suggestion 
that a monument should be erected in honor of Quentin in some 
permanent place in the village of Oyster Bay, as Mr. Hojrt 
thought it would have an educational influence and value, as 
Quentin was the first resident of Oyster Bay (and the first officer) 
to make the supreme sacrifice in giving his life for his country. 
Mr. Ho}rt wished to start this movement, but Colonel Roose- 
velt sent the following rq>ly, a o^y of which Mr. Hoyt gave me: 

"My dear Mr. Hojrt:— That is a very nice letter of j^urs, 
but I do not think it would be advisable to try to put up a monu- 
ment for Quentin. Of course, individually, our loss is irreparable 
but to the country he is simi^ one among many gallant boys 
who gave their lives for the great Cause. With very hearty 
thanks. Faithfully yours." 

The above letter and his statement that he and Quentin's 
mother would prefer that their boy should lie where he fell were 



350 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

but what would have naturally been expected of Cobnel and 
Mis. Roosevelt. 

In September, 19189 Theodore Roosevelt made an address 
on Lafayette Day, part of which ran as follows: 

''Lafayette Day commmemorates the service rendered to 
America in the Revolution by France. I wish to insist with all 
possible emphasis that in the present war, France, England, 
and Italy and the other Allies have rendered us similar services. 
. . . They have been fighting for us when they were fitting 
for themselves. [My brother was only repeating in 1918 what 
he had stanchly declared from the autumn of 1914.] Our army 
on the other side is now repaying in part our dd>t. It is now 
time and it is long behind time for America to bear her full share 
of the common burden. . • • It is sometimes announced that 
part of the Peace Agreement must be a League of Nations which 
will avert all war for the future and put a stop to the need of 
this nation prepaiing its own strength for its own defense. In 
deciding upon proposals of this nature, it behooves our people 
to remember that competitive rhetoric is a poor substitute for 
the habit of resolutely looking facts in the face. Patriotism 
stands in national matters as love of family does in private life. 
Nationalism corresponds to the love a man bears for his wife 
and children. Internationalism corresponds to the feeling he 
has for his neighbors generally. The sound nationalism is the 
only type of really helpful internationalism, [M-edsely as in 
private relations, it is the man who is most devoted to his own 
wife and children who is apt in the long run to be the most satis- 
factory neighbor. The professional pacifist and the professional 
internationalist are equally undesirable citizens. The Amer- 
ican pacifist has in the actual fact shown himself to be the ally 
of the German militarist. We Americans should abhor all wrong- 
doing to other nations. We ought always to act fairly and gen- 
erously by other natfens, but, we must remember that our first 
duty is to be loyal and patriotic citizens of our aivn nation. Any 
such League of Nations would have to depend for its success 



War 351 

upon the adheabn of nine other nations which are actually or 
potentially the most powerful militaiy nations; and these nine 
nations include Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Russia. The 
first three have recently and repeatedly violated and are now 
actively and continuou^y violating not only eveiy treaty but 
every rule of civilized warfare and of international good faith. 
During the last year, Russia under the dominance of the Bolshe- 
vist has betrayed her Allies, has become the tool of the German 
autocracy and has shown such utter disr^ard of her national 
honor and plighted word and her international duties that she 
is now in external affairs the passive tool and ally of her brutal 
conqueror, Germany. 

"What earthly use is it to pretend that the safety of the 
world would be secured by a League in which these four nations 
would be among the nine leading partners? Long years must 
pass before we can again trust in promises these four nations 
make. Therefore, unless our folly is such that it will not depart 
from us until we are brayed in a mortar, let us remember that 
any such treaty will be worthless imless our own prepared 
strength renders it unsafe to break it. . . . Let us support any 
reasonable plan whether in the form of a League of Nations or 
in any other shape which bids fair to lessen the probable number 
of future wars and to limit their scope, but let us laugh at all 
or any assertions that any such plan will guaranty Peace and 
Safety to the foolish, weak, or timid characters who have not 
the win and the power to prqmre for their own defense. Sup* 
port any such plan which is honest and reasonable, but support 
it as a condition to and never as a substitute for the policy of 
prq)aring our own strength for our own defense. 

"I believe that this preparation should be, by the introduc- 
tion in this country of the principle of universal training and 
universal service, as practised in Switzerland, and modified, 
of course, ahmg the lines enacted in Australia, and in accordance 
with our needs. There will be no taint of Prussian tn?lit^r?&"^ 
in such a system. It will merely mean to fit ourselves for self- 



352 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

defense and a great democracy in which order, law, and liberty 
are to prevail/' 

I have quoted this speech because I am under the impres- 
sion that it was his first actual declaration of any attitude to- 
ward a proposed League of Nations. In the early autunm of 
1914 Theodore Roosevelt himself had written an article for 
the New York Times syndicate in which he suggested the pos- 
sibility of a League of Nations, and the fact that he did make 
that suggestion was frequently used after his death — ^and, I 
think, in an unjustifiable manner — ^by the adherents of the Wil- 
sonian League of Nations, with the desire to make the American 
public feel that my brother would have been in favor of Mn 
Wilson's league. In every pronouncement in connection with 
a tentative or possible league, my brother invariably laid stress 
upon an absolutely Americanized type of association. I asked 
him once about his article written in 1914, and he told me that 
while still hoping that some good might come from a league or 
association of nations, his serious study of world situations 
during the Great War had made him less optimistic as to the pos- 
sibility of reaching effective results through such a possible league 
or association. 

In another speech at about the same time, he said, in char- 
acteristic fashion: ''I frequently meet one of those nice gentiy 
in whom softness of heart has spread to the head, who say: 
'How can we guaranty that everybody will love one another at 
the end of the war?' The first stq> in guarantying it is to knock 
Germany out!" 

On September 12 my husband, Douglas Robinson, the un- 
failing friend and devoted brother of Theodore Roosevelt, died 
very suddenly, and my brother and sister-in-law hurried to 
the old home on the Mohawk Hills which my husband had 
loved so well. Putting themselves and their own grief for 
Mr. Robinson and their own late personal sorrow entirely aside, 
they did all that could be done by those we love to help me in 
every way. My brother had always cared for Henderson House, 



War 353 

its traditions and its customs, and even in the midst of the sorrow 
which now hung over the old place, he constantly spoke to me 
of his appreciation of its atmosphere. At the time of my hus- 
band's death my eldest son came quickly back for two days from 
the camp where he was training, to his own home adjoining 
mine, and his children were with us constantly during those 
days, as were the children of my nephew and niece, Hall and 
Margaret Roosevelt, who occupied a little cottage on my place. 
I remember with what tender thoug^tfulness my brother with- 
drew himself on the Sunday afternoon after the funeral and 
wrote a long letter to my second son, Monroe, a captain in the 
77th Division, then in the Argonne Forest in France. Just as 
he had found comfort in his own little grandchildren during those 
hard days at Dark Harbor, Maine, so, while facing the great 
loss of his lifelong and devoted friend and brother-in-law, he 
turned to an affectionate intercourse with the little ones of 
the youngest generation of the family, and on September 19, 
when he had left me and gone to Oyster Bay, he writes: '^I 
think of you with tenderest love and sympathy all the time. 
I cannot get over my delight in Helen and Teddy's darling 
children; and I loved Margaret's brace of little strappers also. 
Ardiie and Grade have hired a little i^>artment in town." 
His son Captain Archibald Roosevelt had returned from France 
sorely wounded in both arm and leg, wounds and disabilities 
which he bore with undaunted patience and courage. 

On October 13, in response to a letter of mine in which I 
told him that a Monsieur Goblet had wished the honor of dedi- 
cating to him a poem, and at the same time had also asked the 
privilege of translating my verses ''To France " into the French 
language, he writes to me: 

''I have written to M. Goblet as you suggested; I fed that 
you have every rig^t to be really pleased with what he says 
about your poem — ^a noble little poem. 

"How admirably Monroe has done. It is astonishing how 
many men I meet who speak of Douglas [my husband] not only 



354 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

with deq> affectionate regard but with a keen sense of the loss 
of an exceptionally vigorous and powerful personality. Tell 
Helen that I am really counting on that visit from her delight- 
ful children. Their attitude touched me veiy much. I am much 
concerned at what you tell me about gallant Bye's health. Give 
her my dearest love." 

My sbter, Mrs. Cowles, was even more delicate than usual 
that autumn, and I was with her at the time he wrote me the 
above letter. His adnuration for our older sister was unbounded, 
and her ^lendid dauntless attitude toward the physical pain 
she suffered, and her unbn^en patience through suffering, never 
failed to awake in him a responsive appreciation. 

About that time President Wilson entered into a correspon- 
dence with Germany of which my brother disapproved. On 
October 13 he dictated the following statement at his home on 
Sagamore Hill: 

'^I regret greatly that Presklent Wilson has entered into 
these n^otiations, and I trust they will be stopped. We have 
announced that we will not submit to a negotiated Peace, and 
under such conditions, to begin n^otiations is bad faith with 
ourselves and our Allies." 

Again on October 25, in an open letter to his intimate friend 
Senator Heniy Cabot Lodge, ''Let us," he says, ''amongst other 
things, dictate Peace by the hammering of guns, and not talk 
about Peace to the accompaniment of the clicking of type- 
writers." 

Although the extracts which follow were written and pub- 
lished several wedcs later than the above quotations, I prefer 
to give them in this connection, for Colonel Roosevelt's atti- 
tude toward "Peace without victory " and a probable League of 
Nations has been so often misrepresented. The Kansas City 
Aof , the newq>aper with which Cotond Roosevelt had actual 
coimection durinig the last year of his life, published an editorial 
after his death in answer to a remark made by Senator Hitch- 
cock, chainnan of the Foreign Relations Committee, in which 



War 355 

he expressed the opinioii that if Colonel Roosevelt were alive, 
''he would be found supporting the League of Nations as ar- 
dently as President Wilson." 

The Star denied this assertion, and said: 

''From the beginning of the discussion of the proposed 
League, The Star has been anxious to find practical features 
which it could support as a real defense toward lastmg peace. 
In the last weeks of 1918, the matter was taken up with Colonel 
Roosevelt who proved to be of the same mind. He recognized 
the war weariness of the world, — a weariness in which he shared 
to the full — and was anxious to further any practical stq> in 
international organization. The difficulty was to find the prac- 
tical basis. After his first editorial approving certain principles 
of a League, a member of The Star staff discussed the matter 
with him late in December at the Roosevelt Hospital. The 
suggestion was made that in a contribution he might point out 
certain things which a loosely organized League might accom- 
plish. He repHed that he could see so Uttle that it might ac- 
complish, in comparison with the rosy pictures that had been 
painted of its possibilities, that he hesitated to write on that 
line. 

" In the course of correspondence, he wrote under date of De- 
cember 28th, 1918: 'In substance, or as our friends the dip- 
lomats say, in number, I am in hearty accord with you. • . • 
But remember that you are freer to write unsigned editorials 
than I am when I use my signature. If you propose a little 
more than can be carried out, no harm comes, but if I do so, it 
may hamper me for years. However, I will do my best to write 
you such an article as you suggest and then, probably, one on 
what I regard as infinitely more important, viz., our bustuess to 
prepare for our own self-defense.' A few days later, almost on the 
eve of his death, he wrote the following article printed in The 
Star on January 13th. It was dictated at his home in Oyster 
Bay on January 3rd, the Friday before his death, and his sec- 
retary expected to take the typed copy to him for correction the 



356 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

following Monday, the veiy Monday of his death. The following 
then, his final article, represents his matured judgment based 
on protracted discussion and correspondence. It is of peculiar 
importance as the last message of a man who, above eveiy other 
American of his generation, combined high patriotism, practical 
sense and a positive genius for international relations." 

By Theodore Roosev£L7 

'' It is^ of course, a serious misfortune that our people are not 
getting a dear idea of what is happening on the other side. For 
the moment, the point as to which we are foggy is the League 
of Nations. We all of us earnestly desire such a league, only 
we wish to be sure that it will help and not hinder the cause of 
world peace and justice. There is not a young man in this coun- 
try who has fought, or an old man who has seen those dear to 
him fight, who does not wish to minimize the chance of future 
war. But there is not a man of sense who does not know that 
in any such movement if too much is attempted the result is 
either failure or worse than failure. 



" Would it not be well to begin with the league which we ac- 
tually have in existence, the league of the Allies who have fought 
through this great war? Let us at the peace table see that real 
justice is done as among these AUies, and that while the sternest 
reparation is demanded from our foes for such horrors as those 
committed in Belgium, northern France, Annenia, and the sink- 
ing of the LusUania, nothing should be done in the spirit of mere 
vengeance. Then let us agree to extend the privil^es of the 
league as rapidly as their conduct warrants it to other nations, 
doubtless disoiminating between those who would have a guid- 
ing part in the league and the weak nations who would be en- 
titled to the privil^es of membersh^, but who would not be 
entitled to a guiding voice in the councils. Let each nation re- 
serve to itself and for its own decision, and let it dearly set forth 



War 357 

questions which are non-justidable. Let nothing be done that 
will interfere with our preparing for our own defense by in- 
troducing a system of universal obligatory military training 
modelled on the Swiss plan. 

''Finally make it perfectly dear that we do not intend to take 
a position of an international Meddlesome Matty. The Amer- 
ican people do not wish to go into an overseas war imless for a 
very great cause and where the issue is absolutely plain. There- 
fore, we do not wish to undertake the responsibility of sending 
our gallant young men to die in obscure fights in the Balkans 
or in Central Europe, or in a war we do not approve of. More- 
over, the American people do not intend to give up the Monroe 
Doctrine. Let civilized Europe and Asia enforce some kind of 
police system in the weak and disorderly countries at their 
thresholds. But let the United States treat Mexico as our Bal- 
kan peninsula and refuse to allow European or Asiatic powers 
to interfere on this continent in any way that implies pennanent 
or semi-permanent possession. Eveiy one of our Allies will with 
delight grant this request if President Wilson chooses to make 
it, and it will be a great misfortune if it is not made. 

''I believe that such an effort made moderately and sanely 
but sincerely and with utter scorn for words that are not made 
good by deeds, will be productive of real and lasting interna- 
tional good." 

No one has the rig^t to declare what Theodore Roosevelt 
would or would not have done or said in connection with inter- 
national problems as they arose, after his death, but eveiy one 
has the right to quote his own words, written under his own sig- 
nature, and no words could be stronger than those in which he 
made his plea for America First and for sound nationalism. But 
I have voluntarily gone far afield from my actual narrative. 

Events continued to move with astounding rapidity in that 
autumn of 1918. My heart, like the heart of many another 
mother, was wrung by the news of the terrible fighting in the 
Argonne Forest, and again wrung by alternate hopes and fears 



358 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

as the October days drew to a dose. On the 27th day of Octo- 
ber my brother celebrated his sixtieth birthday under the quiet 
pcMlal of his beloved home. As usual, I had sent to him my 
yearly message, in which I always told him what that day meant 
to me — the day when into this world, this confused, strange 
world that we human beings find so difficult to understand, 
there came his clarifying qnrit, his magnetic personality, his 
great heart, ready always to he^ the weak and lift the unfortu- 
nate who were trying to lift themselves. I used to teU him that 
as long as he lived, no matter what my own personal sorrows 
were, life would retain not only happiness but also glamour for 
me. 

In answer to my birthday letter, an answer written on his 
veiy birthday in his own handwriting, he sends me the follow- 
ing message. Intimate as it is, I give it in full, for in these 
few short lines there seems to breathe the whole qurit of my 
brother — the unswerving affection, the immediate response to 
my affection, and the wish to encourage me to face sorrows 
that were hard to bear by reminding me of the rare joys which 
I had also tasted. The manner in which he joined his own 
sorrows and joys to mine, the sweet compliment of the words 
which infer that for him I still had youthf ulness, and at the end 
the type of humor which brought always a savor into his own 
life and into the lives of those whom he closely touched, all were 
part of that spirit. 

Dawjng Pussie.— Sagamore HiU, October 27, 1918. 

It was dear of you to remember my birthday. Darling, after 
all, you and I have known long years of happiness, and you are 
as young as I am old. 

Ever yours, 

Methusaieh's Undesstudy. 



xvm 

"THE QUIET QUrmNG'** 

For those who must journey 
HeDorf orwftrd alone. 
Have need of stout convoy 
Now Great-Heart is gone. 

— ^Rudyard Kipling. 

ON November ii, 19189 the armistice with Germany was 
signed by General Foch. The war was over ! So many 
years had passed since that fateful August i, 1914, that 
at first the mind of the world was not attuned to peace. It 
now seemed as incomprehensible that we should be at peace as 
it had seemed impossible that we should be at war. Just before 
the armistice was signed the United States had proved by the 
ballots cast on Election day that the request of President Wil- 
son that a Democratic Congress should be returned was not 
in accord with the wishes of the American people. 

Theodore Roosevelt, in a vivid speech at Carnegie Hall 
just before Election day, had defined the issues of the future 
in sharp, terse sentences, and had pleaded for preparedness for 
peace (for the signs of those days showed that peace was not 
far off)) as he had pleaded so long ago for preparedness for war. 
He was far from well on the nig^t when he made that speech, 
which was to prove the last that he would ever make in the hall 
in which he had so often aroused his fellow citizens to a sense of 
their dvic and national duty. I was ill and could not be pres- 
ent, but Mrs. Roosevelt told me afterward that she had been 
much concerned for him, for a trouble which he thought was 
sciatica in his leg was giving him intense pain. No one would 
have suspected that fact, however, and many in the audience 

*Title of a poem written on the death of Theodore Roosevelt by J. Fries, an 
old veteran of the Civil War. 

359 



360 My Brother Theodore Roosevdt 

told me afterward that that speech in Carnegie Hall was one 
of the most convincing and thrilling appeals to patriotism ever 
made by Theodore Roosevelt. 

A few days later, always true to his interest in the colored 
people, he made an address under the auspices of the Negro 
Cirde, and again I was to have been present and was prevented 
by my condition of health. The following week when I was 
better I telegraphed to Oyster Bay to ask him, if possible, to 
lunch with me in New York, and to my distress received an 
answer that he was not well enough to come to New York, but 
would I come out and spend the night at Oyster Bay instead? 
When I arrived at Sagamore Hill, I could not but feel worried 
to find him in bed, and in much pain, which, however, he entirely 
disregarded, and we had one of the most delightful evenings 
that I ever remember spending with him. I had brought, think- 
ing that it might interest him. Professor William Lyon Phelps's 
book on ''Modem Poetry," and during the time that I left his 
room to take dinner with my sister-in-law, he had read so much 
and with such avidity that I felt on my return to his bedside 
that he had assimilated the whole volume. In spite of pain and 
politics, he threw himself into a discussion of modem American 
poetry, taking up author after author and giving me rapid criti- 
cisms or appreciations. He took much interest in both Edgar 
Lee Masters and Vachel Lindsay, struck with the masterful 
story-telling quality of the one and the curious rhythmic metre 
of the other, and the strong Americanism of both. 

From poetry we wandered across political fields together, 
and he discussed the armistice which had just been signed, and 
which he said he could not but regret from the standpoint of 
the future. He felt that for all the days to come it would have 
been better had Germany's army had to return to the Father- 
land an insignificant and defeated fraction of its original strength, 
and had the Allies entered Berlin as victors. This opinion, 
although very strong, was not in any way advanced as a criti- 
cism of the signing of the armistice, which he appeared to feel 
had been inevitable. We talked until twelve o'dock that night 






"The Quiet Quitting" 361 

and I have always felt grateful to my sister-in-law for having 
arranged for me to have that delightful communion with my 
brother. 

There was no serious apprehension about his health when I 
left the next morning, and the news that he had been taken to 
the hospital the foUowing week came as a shock and surprise 
to me. All through those late November and December days, 
when my brother was an invalid in Roosevelt Hospital (except 
for a brief thirty-six hours when he was threatened with pneu- 
monia, which trouble he threw off with his usual wonderful 
vitality), we were not seriously apprehensive of any fatal out- 
come to his ill health, and, indeed, at times during that deten- 
tion in the hospital, he gave one the impression of a man fully 
able to recuperate as he had always done before. Many were 
the happy hours of quiet interchange of thought and affection 
passed by me with my brother in the hospital. My sister-in- 
law had given the order to the nurses that I should always be 
admitted, and I came and went in the sick-room daily. Some- 
times he was well enough to see visitors, and lines of people of 
the most varied kinds were always waiting in the corridors in 
the hope of a few words with him. I remember a long talk on 
American literature to which I listened between Hamlin Gar- 
land and himself, and in the middle of December he asked me to 
telegraph our dear friend Senator Lodge to ask him to come on 
and discuss certain political matters with him. The senator 
spent two days with me, and of those two days two whole morn- 
ings in the Q>lonel's room in the hospital. I was with them 
during the first morning when they discussed the tentative 
League of Nations, parts of which in problematical form were 
already known to the public. The different reservations, in- 
sisted upon later by Senator Lodge, when the League in its 
eventual form was presented to the Senate of the United States, 
were tentatively formulated at the bedside of the Colonel. I 
do not mean that definite clauses in the League were definitely 
discussed, but many contingencies of the document, contingen- 
cies which later took the fonn of definite clauses, were discussed, 



362 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt 

and the future attitude toward such contingencies more or less 
mapped out. He took great pleasure in these talks with 
Senator Lodge, for, although not always in accord in some of 
their political views, I know no one in whose stimulating 
mentality my brother took keener pleasure; and on the fun- 
damental issues of "America First/' and of deq>-rooted 
patriotism and practical service to their country, they stood 
invariably as one man. 

One day-— in fact, it was the last day that I sat with him in 
the hospital — ^he seemed particularly bright and on the near 
road to recovery. His left arm was still in bandages, but with 
his strong right hand he gesticulated as of old, and sitting in 
his armchair, his eyes clear and shining, his face ruddy and ani- 
mated, he seemed to me to have lost nothing of the vigorous 
and inspiring personality of earlier days. As usual, he shared 
my every interest, reiterated his desire to have my little grand- 
son, Douglas, and his sisters pay a visit in the holidays to Saga- 
more Hill, told me delightedly how he would show Douglas 
every trophy in the large north room where his trophies were 
kept, and said that he wanted to know all the children intimately. 
From family affairs we branched off to public affairs, and speak- 
ing of the possibilities of the future, he said he knew much de- 
pended upon his health, but that he recognized that even amongst 
those who had been opposed to him in the past, there was now 
a strong desire for him to be the Republican candidate for Presi- 
dent in 1920. Alluding to his birthday so lately passed, he said : 
"Well, anyway, no matter what comes, I have kept the prom- 
ise that I made to myself when I was tw^ity-one." "What 
promise, Theodore?" I asked him. "You made many promises 
to yourself, and I am sure have kept them all." "I promised 
myself," he said, bringing his lig^t fist down with emphasis 
on the arm of the chair, "that I would work upio the kiU imtil 
I was sixty, and I have done it. I have kept my promise, 
and now, even if I should be an invalid — ^I should not ISce to be 
an invalid — ^but even if I should be an invalid, or if I should 
die [this with a snap of his finger and thumb], what difference